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Carranza  and  His 
Bolshevik  Regime 


By 
JORGE  VERA-ESTANOL 

Former  Secretary  of  the  Interior  and 

Former  Secretary  of  Public  Education 

of  the  Republic  of  Mexico 


Wayside  Press 

Los  Angeles,  Cal. 

1920 


COPYRIGHT    BY 

JORGE   VERA-ESTANOLi 

FORMER  SECRETARY  OP  THE  INTERIOR  AND 

FORMER  SECRETARY  OF  PUBLIC   EDUCATION 

OP  THE  REPUBLIC  OF  MEXICO 

i 


TO    MY    COUNTRYMEN 

During  the  year  1919  I  published  in 
"Revista  Mexicana,"  a  weekly  periodical 
of  San  Antonio,  Texas,  a  series  of  seventeen 
articles  designed  to  show  that  the  Mexican 
constitution  which  was  adopted  at  Queretaro 
in  1917,  and  which  is  still  in  force,  is  spurious 
in  origin  and  that  such  of  its  articles  as 
effected  any  changes  of  serious  import  in 
the  provisions  of  the  constitution  of  1857 
were  in  direct  conflict  with  the  principles 
of  equity  and  the  demands  of  national 
welfare. 

At  the  time  when  the  aforementioned 
articles  were  Written,  the  government  of 
Venustiano  Carranza  had  been  in  existence 
more  than  two  years  and  during  this  period 
it  had  not  succeeded  in  restoring  order  in 
Mexico  nor  in  estajDlishing  truly  cordial 
relations  with  three  of  the  largest  world 
powers,  the  United  States,  France  and 
England.  Lacking  a  proper  foundation  or 
any  real  support,  either  within  or  without  the 
bounds    of   its   own    country,    the    Carranza 


government  was  enabled  to  exist  only  by 
the  maintenance  of  an  army  of  100,000  men 
and  the  further  fact  that  the  neutrality  laws 
of  the  United  States  operated  to  prevent  the 
arming  of  the  nation  against  its  rulers. 

The  defection  of  a  single  state  was  all  that 
was  necessary  to  cause  practically  all  of  the 
generals  of  Carranza's  army  to  turn  upon  him 
one  after  another  and  to  bring  about  the 
dissolution  of  the  government  in  the  short 
space  of  thirty  days. 

And  now  we  are  concerned  with  the 
question:  *'Were  the  Carranza  policies 
repudiated  simultaneously  with  his  downfall.'^'' 
Those  at  the  head  of  the  federal  and  state 
governments  are  the  same  men  who  battled 
with  Carranza  in  1913,  who  styled  him  "First 
Chief, "  who  elected  him  president,  who  drew 
up  the  constitution  of  1917,  and  kept  him  in 
power  for  three  consecutive  years. 

But  despite  the  identity  of  these  men  their 
attitude  of  today  contrasts  favorably  with 
that  of  yesterday.  No  property  has  been 
confiscated,  no  churches  have  been  profaned, 
no  revenges  have  been  exacted  and  no  whole- 
sale executions  have  taken  place.  Instead 
of  the  passionate  outbursts  inspired  by  hatred 
or  cupidity  that  characterized  the  Carranza 


revolution  of  1913  there  fall  today  from  the 
lips  of  its  most  conspicuous  leaders  words 
imbued  with  a  spirit  of  moderation  and  a 
desire  to  conciliate.  It  appears  to  be  their 
purpose  to  give  guarantees  of  safety  to 
political  refugees  that  they  may  return  to 
their  country  to  collaborate  in  the  work  of 
reconstruction  through  the  exercise  of  consti- 
tutional rights  rather  than  by  the  grace  of 
humiliating  permits.  And  it  has  also  been 
made  known  that  property  illegally  seized  by 
officials  of  the  Carranza  government  will  be 
restored  to  its  owners. 

And  what  is  more,  many  revolutionists  of 
the  Carranza  regime,  since  the  heat  of  the 
passions  which  inspired  the  mistakes  of  1917 
has  cooled,  recognize  the  faults  of  the  consti- 
tution of  Queretaro  and  the  injustices  which 
it  embodies  and  admit  the  desirability  of  the 
repeal  of  a  considerable  number  of  its  pro- 
visions and  the  restoration  of  corresponding 
ones  in  the  constitution  of  1857. 

Under  such  circumstances  no  effort  should 
be  spared  to  legalize  the  constitution  of  1917 
by  a  revision  of  the  document  in  the  manner 
prescribed  by  the  constitution  of  1857  and 
reincorporated  in  the  former,  at  the  same 
time  writing  into  it  such  amendments  as  the 


present  and  future  needs  of  the  country 
appear  to  demand  along  political,  social  and 
economic  lines,  while  eliminating  all  those 
precepts  which  are  recognized  obstacles  in 
the  way  of  individual  freedom,  national 
welfare    and    international    harmony. 

It  is  my  wish  to  contribute  my  grain  of 
sand  toward  this  constructive  program,  for 
the  opportunity  at  hand  may,  perhaps,  be 
the  last  which  will  be  allowed  to  Mexicans  to 
accomplish,  without  aid  or  interference,  the 
regeneration  of  their  country.  In  the  hope 
of  stimulating  deeper  and  more  conscientious 
study  of  the  subject  I  have  decided  to  publish, 
in  this  form,  the  series  of  articles  to  which  I 
have  referred  above.  I  beg  my  countrymen 
to  read  the  articles  in  the  same  unbiased 
frame  of  mind  in  which  they  were  written. 

Los   Angeles,   Cal.,   May   18,    1920. 

JORGE  VERA-ESTANOL 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  I.— The  Mexican  constitu- 
tion of  1917  is  illegitimate,  viewed 
from  a  legal,  political  or  revolutionary 
standpoint 3 

CHAPTER  n.— The  Assembly  of  Quere- 
taro,  which  approved  the  constitution 
of  1917,  did  not  represent  the  will  of  the 
entire  nation  but  merely  that  of  an  arm- 
ed minority  of  the  proletariat.     ...     13 

CHAPTER  III.— Religious  freedom  is 
necessary  to  peace  of  conscience.  The 
constitution  of  1917  denies  this  freedom     23 

CHAPTER  IV.— No  other  problem  in 
Mexico  transcends  that  which  involves 
the  education  of  the  masses.  Recog- 
nizing this,  the  constitution  of  1857 
stipulated  that  education  should  be 
free 33 

CHAPTER  v.— The  constitution  of  1917 
places  odious  restrictions  upon  educa- 
tional freedom.  It  also  places  impedi- 
ments in  the  way  of  carrying  out  any 
national  educational  program  which 
the  federal  government  may  undertake.     42 

CHAPTER  VI.— Considerations  of  hu- 
manity and  the  precepts  of  social 
economy  demand  that  labor  be  digni- 
fied. In  this  respect  the  constitution  of 
1917  is  progressive,  though  it  reaches 
certain  extremes  which  are  incompat- 


Contents 

PAGE 

ible  with  a  desire  to  guarantee  security 
for  invested   capital 55 

CHAPTER  VII.— The  Constitution  of 
1917  very  properly  confers  upon  the 
State  the  power  to  exercise  due  vigilance 
for  the  preservation  and  conservation 
of  natural  elements;  but  Carranza  has 
endeavored  to  utilize  this  prerogative 
to  the  extent  of  socializing  industries  of 
a   private    nature 64 

CHAPTER  VIII.— The  mihtary  caste 
appropriates  two-thirds  of  the  nation's 
revenue  while  the  school-teachers  go 
hungry 84 

CHAPTER  IX.— Under  the  provisions 
of  the  constitution  of  1857  private 
property  could  be  expropriated  only 
upon  the  payment  in  cash  of  a  sum 
covering  its  actual  value.  Under  the 
terms  of  the  constitution  of  1917, 
expropriation  becomes  nothing  more 
than  spoliation,  since  no  advance  cash 
payment  is  required  and  the  indemnity 
allowed  covers  only  a  portion  of  the 
actual  value  of  the  property.     ...     96 

CHAPTER  X.— The  laws  enacted  by  the 
Federal  Congress  since  1884  and  prior 
to  the  year  1917  have  vested  in  the 
owners  of  the  surface  soil  the  deposits  of 
petroleum,  coal  and  other  mineral 
fuels   contained   therein.     The  consti- 


Contents 


PAGE 


tution  of  1917  despoils  these  owners  of 
their  previously   granted  rights.     .     .  106 

CHAPTER  XI.— The  constitution  of 
1917  withholds  forty  per  cent  of  the 
soil  from  foreign  investors  and  also 
prevents  stock-holders  of  mercantile 
corporations  from  lending  their  power- 
ful aid  to  agricultural  enterprises.     .     .   122 

CHAPTER  XII.  The  constitution  of 
1917  imprudently  confers  upon  the 
executive  powers  of  the  nation  and  of 
the  states  the  discretionary  power  of 
determining,  in  every  instance,  the 
landed  areas  which  may  be  owned  by 
stock  corporations  engaged  in  non- 
agricultural    enterprises 129 

CHAPTER  XIII.— The  so-called  agrar- 
ian problem  in  Mexico  is  not  one  which 
involves  the  land.  It  is  concerned 
with  matters  having  to  do  with  irriga- 
tion, investment  problems,  rural  bank- 
ing institutions  and  the  organization  of 
an  autonomous  agricultural  class.  The 
constitution  of  1917,  instead  of  pro- 
viding guarantees  to  property  and 
facilitating  colonization,  fails  to  recog- 
nize the  efficacy  of  patent  titles  or  the 
force  of  res  adjudicata  and  the  pre- 
scription in  questions  pertaining  to 
rural  property  and  at  the  same  time 
injuriously  restricts  the  land-holding 
capacity    of    foreigners 137 


Contents 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XIV.— Commendable  safe- 
guards against  illegal  manipulation  by 
capital  are  provided  by  for  the  consti- 
tution framed  at  Queretaro  but,  here 
again,  iniquitious  extremes  are  reached, 
for  exemptions  necessary  for  the 
stimulation  of  new  industries  are 
denied  and  the  spoliation  of  the  banks, 
authorized  by   Carranza,  is  legaHzed.   171 

CHAPTER  XV.— The  electoral  preroga- 
tive should  be  limited  to  properly 
qualified  voters.  The  constitution  of 
1917  timidly  undertakes  to  restrict 
suffrage  but  does  not  guarantee,  satis- 
factorily, the  freedom  of  the  press.     .  195 

CHAPTER  XVI.— The  constitution  of 
1917  restricts  the  powers  of  the  Federal 
Congress,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
increases  the  political,  co-legislative 
and  even  the  judicial  prerogatives  of 
the  Chief  Executive.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  makes  dictatorship  constitu- 
tional      .     .  210 

CHAPTER  XVII.— Carrancism  and  the 
constitution  of  1917  are  the  most  effec- 
tive proof  of  the  failure  of  President 
Wilson's  attitude  toward  the  Mexican 
question.  Further  pursuance  of  simi- 
lar 'foreign  policies  would  inevitably 
lead   to   similar  results 225 

viii 


CARRANZA   AND    HIS 
BOLSHEVIK  REGIME 


CHAPTER   I 


The  Federal  Congress  of  Mexico,  com- 
posed of  the  Chamber  of  Senators  and  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies,  was  the  only  legitimate 
body  authorized  by  the  Constitution  of  1857 
to  revise  and  amend  that  Constitution.  To 
accomplish  this  the  action  of  a  two-thirds 
majority  of  said  body,  followed  by  the 
ratification  of  a  majority  of  the  State  Legisla- 
tures, was  necessary. 

Nevertheless,  Carranza  called  together  a 
special  assembly  which  met  in  Queretaro,  the 
sole  object  of  which  assembly  was  to  approve 
the  fundamental  code  which  is  in  force  today 
in  Mexico. 

Carranza  foresaw  since  his  first  decree  of 
September  19th,  1916,  that  the  nation — or,  to 
use  his  own  term,  the  ^^reactionaries" — 
would  not  fail  to  protest  against  the  bastardity 
of  the  Constitution's  origin.     He,  therefore 


4        Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

at  once  attempted  to  justify  himself  by 
advancing  the  argument  that  the  revohition 
of  Ayutla,  which  overthrew  the  tyranny  of 
Santa  iVnna,  had  also  convened  a  Constituent 
Congress  and  sanctioned  a  fundamental  code 
without  abiding  by  the  regulations  of  the 
Constitution  of  1824. 

What  ignorance,  or  shall  we  say  duplicity, 
did  he  display  in  citing  this  precedent! 

According  to  the  wording  of  the  *Tlan  de 
Ayutla" — amended  at  Acapulco — * 'Those  of 
its  good  sons  who  launched  forth  to  vindicate 
their  rights  so  scandalously  trampled  upon, 
cherished  not  even  the  vaguest  idea  of  impos- 
ing conditions  upon  the  sovereign  will  of  the 
nation,  either  re-establishing  by  force  of  arms 
the  federal  system  or  restoring  things  to  the 
same  state  in  which  they  were  at  the  time  of 
the  *Plan  de  Jalisco':  for,  all  those  things 
relating  to  the  form  under  which  the  nation 
must  definitely  establish  itself  must  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  Congress  which  shall  be  called  to 
that  end;  thus  is  it  made  known  publicly  and 
explicitly   even  now.'' 

Consistent  with  this  program,  the  fifth 
clause  of  the  above  mentioned  plan  promised 
the  nation  that  "fifteen  days  after  the  president 
*ad  interim'   undertakes  his  new   duties,  he 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime        5 

shall  convene  a  special  congress  in  conformity 
with  the  provisions  of  the  law  enacted  for 
that  purpose  on  the  16th  of  December,  1841, 
which  shall  devote  itself  exclusively  to  the 
work  of  organizing  the  nation  as  a  popular 
representative  republic  and  investigating  the 
acts  of  the  present  government,  and  those  of 
the  provisional  executive,  which  are  treated 
of  in  Article  2.  This  constituent  congress 
is  to  meet  four  months  after  its  convocation." 

Thus  we  see  that  the  Revolution  of  Ayutla 
did  not  offer  to  restore  to  the  nation  a  former 
constitutional  system,  but  rather  to  convene  a 
constituent  assemblage,  the  form  of  which 
had  been  previously  agreed  upon,  with  the 
object  of  drawing  up  a  representative,  re- 
publican and  popular  constitution. 

This  was  the  explicit  pledge  of  the  Revolu- 
tion of  Ayutla  and  it  was  carried  out  to  the 
very  letter.  Nor  did  the  leaders  of  that 
revolution  deceive  the  people  with  the  in- 
tention of  dragging  them  into  armed  strife, 
nor  did  they  defraud  them  after  victory  was 
obtained. 

The  revolution  of  Carranza  proceeded  along 
entirely  different  lines. 

From  its  very  origin,  it  proclaimed  itself 
**the   restorer   of   the   constitutional   system, 


6        Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

which,  it  declared,|had^been'violated  with  the 
overthrow  of  Madero.  This  system  was  estab- 
lished by  the  Constitution  of  1857.  Even 
though  in  the  course  of  its  development,  the 
revolution  of  Carranza  was  obliged  to  pro- 
claim the  necessity  of  political,  economic  and 
social  reforms,  nevertheless  it  did  not  re- 
nounce, at  least  publicly,  its  originally  de- 
clared purpose.  In  addition  to  the  fact  that 
it  assumed  the  deceiving  name  of  "Constitu- 
tionalism," there  are  numberless  documents  in 
which  it  pledged  itself  expressly  or  by  impli- 
cation to  support  the  Constitution  of  1857, 
with  the  amendments  so  loudly  advocated 
appended. 

It  is  unnecessary,  in  order  to  prove  the 
foregoing  statements,  to  quote  the  oflScial 
and  confidential  messages  transmitted  by 
Carranza  agents  to  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment. Suflace  it  to  say  that  Carranza's 
manifesto  to  the  Nation,  issued  on  June  11th, 
1915,  to  which  I  shall  refer  later  on,  was  the 
outcome  of  pledges  made  in  Washington  dur- 
ing the  course  of  negotiations  relative  to  the 
recognition  of  the  de  facto  government.  Proof 
of  this  fact  was  furnished  by  Richard  H.  Cole, 
one  of  Carranza's  confidential  emissaries,  who 
made  public  the  following  telegram  sent  to 


Carranza  and  His  Bolsfievik  Regime     7 

him  in  care  of  the  Mexican  Embassy  at 
Washington  by  Carranza  on  the  23rd  of  May, 
1915:  '*  Received  your  courteous  message. 
The  proclamation  will  be  issued  in  due  time. " 

It  will  suffice  also  to  quote  the  following 
statements  published  by  the  American  press, 
with  reference  to  the  Mexican-American  con- 
ference held  in  New  London  on  the  12th  of 
September,  1916:  "The  Mexican  Deputies 
expect  that  the  election  of  the  Congress  which 
will  formulate  and  submit  the  new  Constitution 
to  the  various  state  legislatures  will  be  simul- 
taneous with  the  local  elections."  Like  all 
reports  given  out  by  the  press  at  that  time, 
this  report  was  published  after  being  passed 
by  these  same  deputies  and  therefore,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  as  to  its  authenticity.  This 
report  shows,  unquestionably,  that  in  the 
opinion  of  the  official  representatives  of  the  de 
facto  Carranza  government  the  approval  of 
Congress,  that  is,  the  Senate  and  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies,  and  of  the  State  Legislatures  was 
necessary  in  order  to  sanction  any  changes 
in  the  constitution. 

But  I  must  speak,  not  exactly  of  the  diplo- 
matic pledges  made  by  Carranza,  but  rather  of 
those  which  he  gave  to  the  Mexican  people. 
These   were  numerous  and  explicit. 


8       Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

Article  2  of  the  decree  of  February  19th, 
1913,  issued  by  the  Legislature  of  the  State 
of  Coahuila,  as  the  initial  act  of  the  Carrancista 
insurrection,  authorizes  the  Executive  of  said 
State  "to  arm  forces  in  order  to  co-operate  in 
sustaining  the  constitutional  system  of  the 
Republic. "  This  constitutional  system  of  the 
Republic  was  precisely  that  of  the  Constitution 
of  1857. 

The  circular  issued  on  the  same  day  by 
Carranza  in  which  he  "urges  co-operation  in 
the  legitimist  movement"  affirms  that  "it  is 
the  duty  of  the  general  Congress  to  meet  for 
the  purpose  of  calling  at  once  a  special 
election  as  provided  in  Article  81  of  our 
Magna  Charta. "  Our  Magna  Charta  was  of 
course  the  Constitution  of  1857.  And  the 
same  circular  adds  that  "the  Government 
of  the  State  finds  itself  obliged  to  hoist  the 
flag  of  legality  in  order  to  uphold  the 
constitutional  government  which  grew  out 
of  the  last  election."  That  government  to 
which  Carranza  referred  could  be  none 
other  than  the  one  established  in  pursuance 
with  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution  of 
1857. 

In  the  "Plan  de  Guadalupe"  of  the  26th  of 
March,  1913,  not  one  word  is  said  regarding 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime        9 

the  reconstruction  of  the  Nation  under  a  new 
constitution.  On  the  contrary,  in  order  to 
justify  its  stipulations,  it  states  that  the 
"Legislative  body  and  the  Judiciary  have 
recognized  and  supported  General  Victoriano 
Huerta  contrary  to  the  constitutional  laws 
and  precepts."  The  said  constitutional  pre- 
cepts were  those  of  the  Constitution  of  1857. 

The  decree  modifying  the  "Plan  de  Guada- 
lupe" issued  on  the  12th  of  December,  1914, 
asserted  that  the  "constitutional  order  of 
things"  (originating  from  the  Constitution  of 
1857)  "had  been  interrupted"  as  a  result 
of  the  events  which  took  place  on  the  19th  of 
February,  1913;  and  as  the  "Constitutional 
Governor  of  Coahuila  had  solemnly  sworn 
to  uphold  and  cause  to  be  upheld  the  general 
Constitution,"  which  was  none  other  than 
that  of  1857,  "he  was  bound  to  take  up  arms 
in  order  to  re-establish  the  constitutional 
system  in  the  Mexican  Republic,"  that  is, 
the  Constitution  of  1857.  And,  therefore, 
"at  the  triumph  of  the  revolution  .  .  . 
the    First    Chief  shall    issue    the 

call  for  election  of  the  Congress  of  the  Union, " 
and  "shall  submit  to  it  the  reforms  pro- 
claimed and  put  in  force  during  the  strife  so 
that    the    Congress    may    ratify,    amend,    or 


10      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

supplement  them  and  may  constitutionalize 
such  amendments  as  may  be  necessary  before 
the  constitutional  order  of  things  can  be 
re-established."  Such  Congress  of  the  Union 
could  be  no  other  than  the  Senate  and  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies  established  in  con- 
formity with  the  Fundamental  Code  of  1857. 

Even  more  explicit  is  the  manifesto  which 
Carranza  himself  issued  to  the  Nation  on  the 
11th  of  June,  1915,  in  order  to  secure  recogni- 
tion as  a  de  facto  government  according  to  his 
telegram  to  Richard  H.  Cole,  quoted  above, 
since  the  following  unmistakable  statements 
can  be  read  in  said  manifesto:  "As  Governor 
of  the  State  of  Coahuila  and  in  obedience  to  y 
the  Constitutional  mandates,  articles  121  and 
128  of  our  fundamental  Code,"— that  of  1857 
— "I  then  assumed  the  representation  of  our 
Republic  under  the  terms  in  which  such  right 
is  vested  in  me  by  the  same  Constitution" 
^ — that  of  1857.  Not  satisfied  with  simply 
mentioning  these  articles,  the  First  Chief 
made  the  following  exact  quotation  from  them : 
"Every  public  ofiicial,  without  any  exception, 
before  assuming  his  duties,  shall  take  solemn 
oath  to  uphold  this  Constitution'* — that  of 
1857 — "and  all  laws  emanating  therefrom." 
"This  Constitution  shall  not  lose  its  force 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      11 

and  vigor  even  though  its  observance  be 
interrupted  by  a  rebellion.  In  ease  that  by 
any  public  disturbance  a  government  con- 
trary to  the  principles  which  it  sanctions  is 
established,  its  force  shall  be  restored  as  soon 
as  the  people  regain  their  liberty." 

Carranza,  therefore,  very  definitely  support- 
ed the  revolution  against  the  government  of 
Huej^ta  upon  the  precepts  of  the  Constitution  of 
i^^y;  he  called  the  people  to  armed  strife 
under  that  flag;  he  promised  to  re-establish  the 
Constitution  of  i  557,  and  explicitly  acknowledg- 
ed, furthermore,  that  inasmuch  as  this  Consti- 
tution could  not  lose  its  force  and  vigor,  under 
any  circumstance  the  Nation,  immediately 
upon  regaining  its  liberty,  would  revert  to  the 
observance  of  this  same  Constitution  of  1857, 

Now  then,  this  Constitution  contains  the 
following  provision: 

"Article  127.  The  present  Constitution 
may  be  amended.  No  amendment  shall  be- 
come part  of  the  Constitution,  if  not  agreed 
upon  by  the  Congress  of  the  Union,  by  a  vote 
of  two-thirds  of  the  members  present,  and 
approved  by  a  majority  of  the  Legislatures  of 
the  States." 

We  see,  therefore,  that  regarded  in  all  three 
aspects — legal,  political  and  revolutionary — the 


12      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

Assembly  of  Queretaro  was  the  bastard  off- 
spring of  a  coup  d'etat,  and  its  work — the 
Constitution  of  1917 — also  illegitimate,  is 
inevitably  condemned  to  disappear  when  ''the 
people  regain  their  liberty''  as  stipulated  in 
Article  128  of  the  Magna  Charta  of  1857 
quoted  by  Carranza  in  his  manifesto  of  the 
nth  of  June,  1915. 


CHAPTER  II 

Inasmuch  as  the  Constitution  of  1857  pro- 
vides for  its  own  amendment,  and  also 
specifies  the  legal  proceedings  to  be  followed  in 
organizing  the  administration,  why,  instead  of 
convoking  an  illegitimate  constituent  assem- 
bly, did  not  Carranza  immediately  call  elections 
for  a  Federal  Congress  and  President  of  the 
Republic  at  the  same  time,  and  compel  the 
military  governors  of  the  States  to  do  likewise 
so  as  to  restore  state  authorities  as  well? 

Why  did  he  not  wait  for  the  Federal  Con- 
gress and  the  State  Legislatures  to  be  convened 
in  order  to  submit  the  constitutional  amend- 
ments which  the  revolution  had  proposed? 

The  answer  is  simple. 

If  the  laws  of  the  Magna  Charta  of  1857 
had  been  honestly  observed,  all  social  classes 
would  have  participated  in  the  general  elec- 
tions. It  would  have  been  impossible  to 
withhold  the  suffrage  either  from  the  Villista 
faction,  which  disagreed  with  the  Carrancistas, 
or  from  the  agrarian  faction,  represented  by 
Zapata  and  his  followers,  or  from  the  scattered 


14      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

adherents  of  the  old  regime,  or,  in  general,  from 
all  the  passive  or  orderly  classes  capable,  on 
account  of  their  education,  of  comprehending 
the  importance  of  the  moment. 

But  such  participation  of  all  the  social 
classes  in  the  coming  election  augured  with 
absolute  certainty  the  defeat  of  the  ruling 
faction  and  its  elimination  from  power. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Carrancista  faction 
was  composed  of  a  small  percentage  of  the 
proletariat.  With  one  or  two  exceptions, 
those  in  its  ranks  acting  as  advisers  were  un- 
successful and  embittered  professional  men, 
underpaid  primary  school  teachers,  mainly 
from  the  rural  districts,  untrained  students, 
and  journalists.  The  officers  and  heads  of 
the  revolutionary  army  had  been  recruited 
from  the  ranks  of  foremen,  muleteers,  police- 
men, clerks,  milkmen,  and  included  also 
quite  a  number  of  drudges,  farm  hands,  peons, 
and  jail-birds. 

Such  was  the  group  of  men  which  had 
seized  the  government  by  violence,  which 
had  confiscated  both  individual  and  public 
property,  which  had  so  easily  enriched  itself 
with  the  proceeds  of  confiscation,  levies,  and 
spoliation  concomitant  with  and  following 
the     military     campaign.     Having  obtained 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      15 

victory,  they  naturally  were  determined  to 
enjoy  the  spoils,  for  they  considered  that  the 
Nation  had  become  their  patrimony. 

They  knew  full  well  that  in  a  free  political 
contest  they  would  be  eliminated,  not  only 
because  of  their  ignorance  and  their  anteced- 
ents, but  also  because  they  represented  a 
scanty  minority. 

One  of  the  foremost  members  of  this  group, 
Machorro  Narvaez,  speaking  before  the  Con- 
stituent Congress,  said:  ''The  present  revolu- 
tion is  not  as  yet  popular  in  Mexico.  The 
greater  part  of  the  Mexican  people  are  still 
against  the  revolution;  the  higher  class,  part 
of  the  middle  and  the  old  intellectual  element 
are  against  the  revolution,  as  well  as  the 
laboring  class  of  a  certain  rank;  clerks  and 
office  employees  who  constitute  mainly  the 
middle  class  are  also  against  the  revolution. 
We  are  still  in  the  minority/'  (Diario  de  los 
Debates,  Vol.  II,  page  71). 

The  ignorance  of  this  revolutionary  caste  is 
well  known  to  all,  and  recognized  even  by  the 
very  mouthpieces  of  the  Carrancista  faction. 

Bojorquez,  another  of  the  members  of  the 
Constituent  Congress,  made  this  statement: 
**I  can  say,  and  many  of  my  fellow  congress- 
men can  say  with  me,  that  we  do  not  only  lack 


16      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

that  preparation" — in  financial  affairs — "but 
also  all  preparation  in  constitutional  and  all 
other  laws;  we  decide  these  momentous 
questions  after  hearing  the  pros  and  cons" — 
sometimes  without  even  hearing  them — "be- 
cause when  we  vote  we  are  led  more  by  our 
revolutionary  instinct  than  by  our  understand- 
ing .  "  (Diario  de  los  Debates, 
Vol.  II,  page  367). 

And  as  a  sample  of  the  boasted  revolutionary 
instinct,  as  well  as  of  the  ignorance  of  the 
leaders,  let  us  hear  what  one  of  the  pillars  of 
the  Carrancista  party,  General  Nafarrete, 
also  a  member  of  the  Constituent  Congress, 
in  discussing  the  article  referring  to  the 
freedom  of  education  says:  *"As  to  the 
explanatory  part  which  treats  of  individual 
guarantees,  which  declares  that  Mexico  is 
free  because  it  states  that  Mexico  is  released 
from  the  restriction  of  those  rights  which  the 
people  declare  of  its  sovereign  and  free  initia- 
tive, I  believe  that  it  is  the  representative 
share  of  the  Executive  of  the  Union  in  order 
to  state  its  policy,  who  is  the  only  one  that  can 
occupy  that  tribune  and  tell  us:  *I  deem  it 
necessary,   in   order   to   sustain   this   contro- 


(1) — I  offer  a  literal  translation  of  a  part  of  General  Nafarrete's  speech 
which  is  as  unintelligible  in  Spanish  as  it  is  in  English. — Author's  Note. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      17 

versy,  to  suppress  these  guarantees,'  and  not 
come,  gentlemen,  to  invade  the  office  of  the 
First  Magistrate  of  the  Nation  so  to  speak  in 
a  manner  particular  to  the  ideas.  Ideas  are 
sacrifices,  gentlemen,  as  we  soldiers  sacrifice 
ourselves.  I  am  willing  to  justify  that  the 
congressmen  are  invading  the  office  of  the  First 
Chief,  of  the  First  Magistrate  of  the  Nation, 
who  is  the  only  one  who  can  ask  the  legislative 
power  whether  the  suppression  of  guarantees 
is  to  be  conceded  in  whole  or  in  part,  for  we 
are  in  the  explanatory  session  in  which  we  say 
that  man  is  free.  I  ask,  sir,  that  my  speech 
may  be  meditated  upon,  because  the  honor 
of  the  home  is  being  invaded."  (Textual), 
(Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  I,  page  470). 

Thus  spoke  and  thought  not  the  elect  of  the 
people,  but  the  select  of  the  triumphant 
faction ! 

But  if  on  the  one  hand  this  faction,  ignorant 
and  in  a  minority,  could  expect  nothing  from  a 
free  vote  of  the  people,  on  the  other  hand  it 
could  rely  upon  might  to  kieep  itself  in  power. 
Inasmuch  as  the  Constitution  of  1857  was  an 
obstruction  to  this  end,  it  was  necessary  to 
give  it  a  death  blow;  and  inasmuch  as  the 
banner  of  the  Constitution  was  also  an  ob- 
struction, it  was  necessary  to  tear  it  to  pieces. 


18       Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

As  a  result,  the  proletariat  in  arms  assumed 
the  exclusive  right  of  citizenship,  declared  it- 
self the  proprietor  of  the  Nation  and  the 
arbiter  of  its  destiny. 

The  heads  of  the  military  caste  joined  in 
what  they  called  the  "Liberal  Constitutional- 
ist Party, "  pledged  themselves  to  support  the 
candidacy  of  Carranza  for  the  Presidency  of 
the  Republic  and  that  of  the  members  of  this 
same  caste  or  its  followers  for  the  Constituent 
Assembly. 

The  lists  of  congressmen  were  drawn  up  by 
the  military  chiefs  and  revised  and  arranged 
by  their  agent,  the  Secretary  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  the  Interior;  the  congressmen  were 
elected  at  the  polls  under  the  armed  pressure 
of  the  local  military  posts  and  of  the  military 
governors  of  the  States  in  an  atmosphere  of 
death  and  oppression.  If  here  and  there  a 
congressman — for  example  those  who  had 
belonged  to  the  "Partido  Renovador"  of  the 
26th  Legislature,  during  the  administration  of 
Madero — succeeded  in  entering  the  Consti- 
tuent Congress,  it  was  through  the  special 
efforts  of  Carranza,  and  in  absolute  opposition 
to  the  head  of  the  military  caste.  General 
Alvaro  Obregon,  who  went  so  far  as  to  request 
Congress  to  reject  the  credentials  of  the 
"Renovadores. " 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      19 

"I  come  to  point  out  to  this  Assembly" — 
said  Candido  Aguilar,  son-in-law-to-be  of 
Carranza — "that  it  is  becoming  a  victim  of 
ministerial  intrigue.  I  come  to  tell  the  truth 
even  though  General  Obregon  and  Mr.  Acufia 
(Secretary  of  the  Interior)  are  my  friends. 
The  intrigue  against  Mr.  Palavicini — one  of 
the  *  Renovadores ' — ^has  been  hatched  by  Mr. 
Acuna  and  General  Obregon,  and  though  you 
are  all  aware  of  the  intrigue,  only  few  of 
you  have  the  moral  courage  to  oppose  it; 
you  always  oppose  the  downfallen.  That 
intrigue,  gentlemen,  dates  from  the  meetings  of 
the  Liberal  Constitutionalist  Party  .  .  ."  "I 
do  not  come  to  incite  government  crises,  I 
come  to  speak  of  personal  intrigues,  for  such 
were  those  of  Chapultepec.  Once,  when  I 
was  in  the  company  of  Mr.  Acuna  and  General 
Obregon,  a  man  whom  I  admire,  esteem,  and 
look  upon  as  a  pride  of  the  Nation,  they  said 
to  me,  *that  man,  Palavicini,  is  giving  too 
much  trouble;  but  he  will  see,  he  will  not  get  to 
Congress."  (Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  I, 
pages  154-227). 

If  the  Secretaries  of  War  and  of  the  Interior 
so  treated  their  associates,  is  it  possible  to 
think  that  they  would  allow  any  one  not  a 
member  of  the  military  faction  of  the  Carran- 
cistas  to  enter  the  Constituent  Congress.'^ 


20       Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

The  decree  of  the  15th  of  September,  1916, 
has  the  following  provisions:  **.  .  .  besides 
those  disqualified  by  the  said  Constitution 
(that  of  1857)  no  one  shall  be  elected  who 
either  by  taking  up  arms  or  by  holding  govern- 
ment positions,  has  aided  the  governments 
and  factions  hostile  to  the  constitutionalist 
cause."     (Art.  40). 

The  letter  of  convocation  for  the  elections, 
of  the  19th  of  the  same  month  of  September, 
adds  that  "those  should  be  considered  citizens 
of  a  State" — one  of  the  requisites  for  election 
— "who  had  resided  in  their  locality  for  at 
least  six  months  prior  to  the  date  of  the 
elections"  (Art.  8,  Section  III),  "and  those 
who  had  been  qualified  citizens  or  residents  of 
their  respective  States  during  the  ten  days 
of  the  uprising  in  the  City  of  Mexico,  provided 
that  they  had  proved  afterwards  with  actual 
deeds  their  adherence  to  the  constitutionalist 
cause."     (Art.  8,  Section  IV). 

And  the  electoral  rules  of  the  same  date 
state  that  the  census  to  be  used  shall  be  "the 
list  of  voters  for  the  last  municipal  elections. " 
(Art.  20). 

In  the  lists,  a  large  number  of  voters  not 
identified  with  the  Carrancista  cause  had  been 
eliminated.     Nevertheless,  as  has  been  seen. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      21 

this  was  not  considered  enough,  and  those  who 
had  supported  the  governments  or  factions 
hostile  to  the  Carrancista  cause  were  also 
excluded. 

But  not  even  this  elimination  satisfied  the 
military  caste,  and  they  finally  exacted  as  a 
qualification  for  electors,  a  residence  of  six 
months  immediately  preceding  the  election. 
Such  a  ruling  deprived  of  the  fi-anchise 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  citizens  who,  fleeing 
from  the  atrocities  of  the  revolutionary  rabble, 
had  removed  from  hamlet  to  town,  from  town 
to  city,  from  city  to  State  Capital,  and  from 
State  Capital  to  the  Metropolis. 

And  in  order  that  the  exclusion  might  be 
absolute,  all  inhabitants  who  had  not  proved 
with  actual  deeds  their  adherence  to  the 
Carrancista  cause,  or,  in  other  words,  to  the 
dominant  proletariat  caste,  were  declared  non- 
residents. 

Thus  the  Assembly  of  Queretaro,  beside 
the  fact  that  it  had  usurped  constitutional 
power,  did  not  even  originate  in  the  will  of 
all  the  social  classes  expressed  at  the  polls. 

The  Carrancista  mobs,  and  they  alone,; 
organized  under  the  direction  of  their  generals 
and  with  the  name  of  Liberal  Constitution- 
alist Party,  manufactured  the  lists  of  congress- 


22      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

men  and  obtained  credentials  for  these  in 
fraudulent  elections,  availing  themselves  of 
the  public  forces  managed  by  the  Secretaries 
of  War,  of  Foreign  Affairs  and  of  the  Interior, 
by  the  military  commanders  acting  as  Govern- 
ors of  the  States,  and  the  heads  of  garrisons 
and  military  posts. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  separation  of  Church  and  State  de- 
serves special  consideration  as  being  one  of  the 
greatest  victories  for  pubHc  rights  gained  by 
the  Constitution  of  1857  and  subsequent 
amendments. 

The  Church  is  a  society  organized  to  teach 
the  flock  of  the  faithful  the  road  to  Heaven. 

The  State  is  a  society  established  to  normal- 
ize the  inter-relations  of  men  living  in  the  same 
community. 

The  former  seeks  spiritual,  the  latter, 
temporal  perfection.  The  Church  is  supreme 
in  dogma,  discipline  and  worship,  so  long  as 
her  external  manifestations  are  not  opposed 
to  the  public  welfare;  the  State  is  supreme 
in  its  function  of  regulator  of  social  conduct, 
but  cannot  go  beyond  the  threshold  of  the 
sacred  tribunal  of  conscience. 

Members  of  different  religious  communities 
and  at  the  same  time  of  one  lay  community, 
can  live  at  peace  with  their  consciences  and 
with  their  fellowmen  only  on  condition  that 
the  Church  refrains  from  all  interference  in 


24      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

public  matters  and  the  State  abstains  from  all 
meddling  in  matters  of  faith.  If  it  were 
necessary  to  confirm  with  historical  evidence 
this  truth,  which  is  now  an  axiom,  it  would 
suflSce  to  cite  the  crime  of  the  Inquisition  in 
order  to  condemn  the  Church  political,  and 
to  recall  the  madness  of  the  worship  of  Reason 
in  order  to  anathematize  the  State  pontifical. 

From  these  facts,  we  draw  two  conclusions : 

Firstly,  that  all  political  actions  on  the 
part  of  the  Church  not  only  pervert  her 
spiritual  ends,  but  also  imperil  the  peace  of 
nations.  No  action,  no  practice  of  a  dog- 
matic character  should  serve  as  a  means  for 
obtaining    control    of    governments. 

Secondly,  as  to  the  individual,  the  inviola- 
bility of  conscience  must  be  absolute. 

With  reference  to  the  first  point,  the  Con- 
stitution of  1857  has  no  other  explicit  stipula- 
tion than  that  all  ecclesiastics  are  deprived 
of  the  privilege  of  holding  certain  offices. 

Taking  advantage  of  the  fact  that  the  Con- 
stitution of  1857  did  not  expressly  forbid 
religious  institutions  as  such  to  organize  into 
political  parties,  the  Catholic  Church,  immedi- 
ately after  the  revolution  of  Madero,  formed 
the  "Catholic  Party"  with  a  view  to  taking 
part  in  the  elections  of  1912.     The  party  was 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      25 

supported  by  the  clergy.  All  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest,  availed  themselves  of  religious 
offices,  the  confessional,  the  pulpit,  doctrine, 
dogma,  faith,  superstition,  and  all  the  in- 
struments at  hand  to  gain  proselytes.  They 
worked  on  the  consciences  of  the  people,  their 
friends,  and  their  servants,  using  the  formid- 
able argument  of  eternal  salvation,  and  when 
the  ballot-boxes  were  installed  they  placed 
about  them  standards  bearing  significant 
legends.  On  many  of  them  for  example,  were 
inscribed  the  words:  "Here  you  vote  for  God. " 

The  Catholic  Church  attempted  in  this 
way  to  convert  itself  into  a  temporal  power  in 
rivalry  to  the  State;  it  endeavored  to  re- 
establish the  theocratic  regime  of  the  middle 
ages.  It  was  thus  false  to  the  lofty  and 
spiritual  ends  for  which  it  was  instituted  at 
the  same  time  that  it  substituted  religious 
sentiment  for  the  patriotic  spirit  in  organizing 
the  administration. 

We,  sincere  and  earnest  liberals,  lovers  of 
the  State,  and  solicitous  for  its  progress  and 
development,  cannot  but  applaud  the  provis- 
ions of  the  Constitution  of  Queretaro  which 
deny  to  ministers  of  any  religion  the  right  to 
hold  office,  to  organize  for  political  ends,  to 
use  the  pulpit,  the  confessional,  or  any  other 


26      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

clerical  function  as  an  instrument  for  political 
propaganda,  whether  by  word  of  mouth  or  in 
writing.  We  also  are  in  complete  accord 
with  the  provisions  which  forbid  the  similar 
use  of  publications  and  periodicals  of  a 
religious  character  and  those  which  forbid  any 
group  or  political  faction  to  assume  a  name 
implying  adherence  to  a  religious  creed,  and 
finally,  that  which  prohibits  any  political 
meetings  to  be  held  in  temples  of  worship. 

But  in  order  to  be  consistent  with  the  same 
principle  of  public  right,  it  is  only  just  to 
admit  that  the  Church  must  be  supreme  in 
questions  of  faith,  that  it  must  enjoy  absolute 
freedom  in  the  determination  of  its  dogmas, 
in  the  adoption  of  its  doctrines,  in  the  external 
forms  of  its  worship,  and  even  in  its  precepts  of 
morality,  with  no  other  restriction  on  the  last 
two,  than  a  prohibition  against  perturbing  or 
imperiling  public  peace  or  retarding  the  work 
of  the  masses;  it  must,  in  addition,  be  free  to 
organize  its  hierarchy  and  to  appoint  its 
doctrinal  and  officiating  personnel. 

The  Constitution  of  1857  with  its  amend- 
ments of  1873  places  no  restriction  on  liberty 
of  conscience  in  these  matters,  and  as  to 
external  forms  of  worship  and  discipline, 
empowers  the  federal  authorities,  to  exercise 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime     27 

any  supervision  over  them  designated  by  law. 
In  addition  to  this,  it  prohibits  monastic 
orders. 

The  first  of  the  foregoing  restrictions  was 
quite  justifiable.  It  was  inspired  only  by 
the  wish  to  preserve  public  order  which,  owing 
to  the  ignorance  and  fanaticism  of  the  masses 
of  our  people,  was  very  easily  disturbed  at 
that  time,  as  it  is  even  now,  if  the  external 
forms  of  worship  are  not  properly  regulated, 
especially  when  services  are  held  outside  the 
churches. 

The  second  restriction,  the  necessity  for 
which  was  easily  explainable  at  that  time  be- 
cause of  political  and  economic  conditions, 
should  no  longer  be  in  force  in  all  its  rigor,  at 
least  in  so  far  as  it  concerns  orders  of  pious 
women  consecrated  to  good  works,  as  for 
example,  the  Sisters  of  Charity.  The  State 
should  limit  itself  in  this  matter  to  denying 
civil  sanction  to  monastic  vows. 

Although  ostensibly  the  Constitution  of 
Queretaro  recognizes  liberty  of  conscience, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  violates  its  most  funda- 
mental manifestations.  I  shall  treat  of  these 
briefly,  leaving  for  a  later  chapter  the  most 
important,  freedom  of  education. 

The  Constitution  of  Queretaro  begins  by 


28      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

prohibiting  foreigners  to  exercise  the  functions 
of  the  priesthood.  Can  anything  be  more 
ridiculous?  Such  a  prohibition  is  equivalent 
to  establishing  a  national  religion,  and  national 
religions  in  the  twentieth  century  are  worse 
than  the  Inquisition  at  the  dawn  of  the  nine- 
teenth. When  religious  institutions  and  their 
ministers  are  not  allowed  the  enjoyment  of 
political  rights  while  discharging  their  priestly 
duties,  what  difference  does  it  make  whether 
it  is  a  native  or  a  foreigner  who  imparts 
doctrines,  moral  commandments,  or  the  con- 
solations of  religion? 

Carranza  himself,  shocked  by  this  excess 
of  tyranny,  felt  obliged  to  allow  three  foreign 
priests  to  hold  services  in  Mexico  City.  It 
is  true  that  he  used  as  an  excuse  a  demand  on 
the  part  of  congregations  for  services  in 
foreign  languages  in  order  to  justify  so  flagrant 
a  transgression  of  his  own  constitution,  but, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  one  of  the  priests  was  a 
Spaniard. 

Another  provision  of  the  Constitution  of 
Queretaro  authorizes  each  State  of  the  Feder- 
ation to  determine  the  number  of  ministers  of 
religion  that  shall  practice  their  profession  in 
its    territory.        Granted    the    separation    of 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      29 

Church  and  State,  is  not  this  another  abso- 
lutely unjustifiable  interference? 

If  catholics,  protestants,  and  in  general, 
members  of  any  religious  body  or  sect  are 
privileged  to  follow  their  form  of  worship, 
all  limitations  of  this  right  trample  upon 
liberty  of  conscience,  inasmuch  as  the  preach- 
ing, doctrine,  religious  ceremonies  and  propa- 
ganda are  essential  manifestations  of  such 
freedom. 

As  a  proof  of  this  we  can  recall  the  state  of 
tenseness  bordering  on  rebellion  which  ob- 
tained in  Jalisco  due  to  the  decree  limiting 
the  number  of  priests  in  that  State.  As 
further  proof,  we  can  also  point  to  the  fact 
that  this  same  decree  was  revoked  because  of 
pressure  brought  to  bear  by  President  Car- 
ranza himself  at  the  cost  of  the  sovereignty  of 
this  same  State,  thus  conceding  the  indisput- 
able fact  that  more  than  any  conception  of 
state  sovereignty,  society  needs  peace  of 
conscience. 

Finally,  in  the  same  article  130,  the  Consti- 
tution of  Queretaro  authorizes  the  formulation 
of  laws  bearing  upon  "religious  discipline  in 
the  Churches."  Are  laic  and  civil  laws  to 
set  the  standard  of  religious  discipline  inside 
the  churches.'^     They  may  dictate  regulations 


30      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

for  policing,  for  morality,  and  for  hygiene,  but 
vesting  the  State  with  the  power  of  regulating 
internal  religious  discipline  is  tantamount  to 
denying  and  repudiating  freedom  of  worship. 

This  encroachment  on  religious  liberty 
resulted  from  the  fact  that  the  Constitution 
of  1917  was  not  drawn  up  by  the  Mexican 
people  nor  for  the  Mexican  people.  That 
Constitution  was  an  agreement  of  the  **  armed 
citizens"  formed  by  a  minority  of  the  sub- 
social  classes  turned  into  fighters,  and  their 
works  are  born  of  the  passions,  hatreds  and 
animosities  which  formed  the  revolutionary 
bond  of  union  of  this  neo-military  caste. 

The  Secretary  of  War,  Alvaro  Obregon, 
hierophant  of  the  so-called  "Liberal  Consti- 
tutional Party,"  boasted  not  many  mxonths 
before  of  having  "traversed  the  Republic 
from  end  to  end  followed  by  the  maledictions 
of  the  priests, "  and  proudly  exclaimed :  "  What 
greater  honor  could  be  mine?"  (El  Liberal, 
Mexico  City,  May  4th,  1915). 

Easily  can  we  imagine  what  his  satellites  in 
the  Assembly  of  Queretaro  felt  impelled  to 
think  and  to  shout. 

Congressman  Gonzales  Torres  declares  that 
all  religions  "are  absolutely  corrupt  and  have 
been    converted    into    a    woof    of    tales    and 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      31 

legends;  of  absurdities  and  aberrations." 
(Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  I,  page  520). 

Congressman  Reeio  states  in  recording 
his  vote  that  "we  are  obliged  to  prevent  and 
correct  all  that  which  may  contribute  to  the 
immorality  and  corruption  of  the  Mexican 
people,  freeing  them  at  the  same  time  from 
the  claws  of  the  crafty  priest  who  takes 
possession  of  consciences  in  order  to  carry 
on  his  iniquitous  work  of  prostitution." 
He  proposes,  as  a  result,  that  the  ministers  of 
any  sect  be  forbidden  to  hear  confessions, 
and  that  the  practice  of  their  ministerial 
profession  be  limited  to  Mexican  citizens 
by  birth,  imposing  upon  them  the  obligation 
of  marrying  according  to  the  civil  law  if 
they  have  not  reached  the  age  of  fity.  (Diario 
de  los  Debates,  Vol.  II,  pages  741-2,  750-1). 

Congressman  Alonzo  Romero  wins  loud 
applause  on  ending  with  this  tirade:  "There  is 
no  doubt  that  any  woman  who  goes  to  confes- 
sion is  an  adulteress  and  any  husband  who 
permits  it  is  a  procurer,  and  a  party  to  such 
immoral  practices."  (Diario  de  los  Debates, 
Vol.  II,  page  774). 

Congressman  Gonzalez  Galindo  affirms  the 
following:  "It  has  been  agreed  upon  that 
religion  had  an  evolutionary  progress  until  it 


32      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

reached  Christianity,  which  is  supposed  to 
be  the  most  perfect  form;  theologians  say 
that  it  is  the  most  truthful;  I  call  it  a  farce; 
I  call  it  a  string  of  lies  and  fables. "  (Diario 
de  los  Debates,  Vol.  II,  page  753). 

What  could  be  expected  from  the  men  who 
shot  at  images  of  saints  in  Monterey,  who 
harassed  and  expelled  the  priests  and  nuns  of 
Zacatecas,  who  held  the  bishop  of  Durango 
in  a  well  in  order  to  extort  from  him  a  rich 
ransom;  who  violated  virgins  consecrated  to 
a  religious  life,  who  looted  and  desecrated  the 
Josephine  College,  in  Mexico  City,  and  who 
sacked  and  pillaged  every  church  in  the 
Republic?  What  could  they  do  in  the  name 
of  liberty  except  to  crush  and  profane  the 
religious  convictions  of  the  ninety-nine  per 
cent,  of  the  Mexican  people,  pursuing  them 
even  to  the  sacred  precincts  of  conscience? 

How  could  these  fanatics  who  upheld  the 
bloody  and  concupiscent  canons  of  pre-consti- 
tutionalism  permit  their  victims  to  seek 
consolation  in  that  sublime  love  and  grand 
renunciation  which  defied  the  Master? 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Over  four-fifths  of  the  Mexican  people 
are  illiterate;  this  indicates  the  extent  of 
their  lack  of  culture. 

Thirty  per  cent,  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
country  are  of  a  pure  indigenous  race,  a  large 
proportion  of  these  do  not  speak  the  Spanish 
language  and  all  of  them  live  in  a  state  of  sub- 
civilization.  Within  the  same  borders,  there- 
fore, there  is  a  double  nationality;  the  sub- 
civilized  and  the  civilized.  The  former  are 
still  in  the  period  of  subordination;  while  the 
latter  have  already  reached  that  of  co- 
ordination. Must  we  Mexicans  of  high  ideals 
leave  the  subcivilized  in  their  state  of  sub- 
ordination.'^ 

If  their  inferiority  were  ethnical,  if  their 
race  were  opposed  to  progress,  there  could  be 
no  other  course  than  to  let  them  live  as  they 
have  lived  and  utilize  their  muscular  force 
for  the  good  of  the  rest  of  the  community 
until  the  law  of  natural  selection  had  definite- 
ly wiped  them  out. 

But  there  is  no  such  ethnical  inferiority;  the 


34      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

native  race  is  strong,  intelligent,  tenacious  in 
its  purpose,  and  at  the  same  time  open  to 
advice  and  frugal,  although  in  certain  regions 
inclined  to  the  use  of  alcohol.  They  reveal  all 
these  qualities  in  a  passive  way  because  they 
have  lived  for  four  hundred  years  under  the 
political,  social,  economic  and  mental  oppres- 
sion of  the  conquering  race  and  its  descendants 
whether  full-blooded  or  mixed. 

But  all  these  faculties,  now  passive,  are 
capable  of  becoming  active.  The  power  of 
imitation  of  the  native  can  be  transformed  into 
initiative;  his  ability  to  endure  suffering  and 
adversity  into  a  persistent  and  tenacious  de- 
sire for  useful  work;  his  docility,  resulting  from 
age-long  obedience,  can  bring  about  conscious 
social  discipline.  The  only  thing  that  has 
been  wanting  to  effect  this  metamorphosis  is 
education. 

There  are,  nevertheless,  many  who  oppose 
this,  the  sole  way  to  regeneration,  with  the 
argument  that  it  will  only  awaken  appetites 
and  ambitions  in  the  masses.  Those  who 
predict  such  dangers  are  retrogressive.  They 
wish  to  preserve  their  own  privileges,  and  will 
heed  neither  the  lessons  of  history  nor  the 
teachings  of  social  science.  Ignorance  can 
temporarily  hold  the  masses  in  meek  sub- 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      35 

jection,  but  at  the  same  time  it  makes  them  an 
easy  prey  to  agitators  and  demagogues  and  is 
the  underlying  cause  oT  anarchical  uprisings. 
Let  the  sad  picture  of  Mexico  in  the  past  nine 
years,  and  the  gloomy  spectacle  which  Eastern 
Europe  now  presents,  in  contrast  to  well- 
ordered  conditions  in  the  United  States,  stand 
as  a  proof  of  this  contention. 

Not  a  few  oppose  the  education  of  the 
masses,  arguing  that  it  does  not  go  hand  in 
hand  with  a  moral  progress  necessary  as  a 
check  upon  anti-social  instincts.  Those  who 
think  thus  forget  that  the  most  ignorant 
peoples  in  the  world  are  not  the  most  moral; 
that  if,  in  truth,  civilization  brings  its  retinue 
of  vices,  they  are  only  new^  forms  of  those  which 
already  existed,  and  to  offset  them,  it  is 
accompanied  by  virtues  which  serve  as  a 
counterbalance. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  we  speak  of 
education,  let  it  be  understood  that  we  mean  a 
practical  education  which  may  guide  the 
talents  of  the  people  towards  the  work  of  econ- 
omic, civic  and  moral  co-ordination. 

It  must,  therefore,  be  an  economic  education 
to  create  in  man  needs  and  aspirations  at  the 
same  time  that  it  provides  the  means  of 
satisfying  them  by  productive  labor.     It  must 


36      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

be  a  civic  education  to  which  end  the  school, 
as  a  community  in  itself,  could  use  as  a  daily 
object  lesson  the  rights  and  duties,  the 
liberties  and  restrictions,  that  every  commun- 
ity prescribes  for  the  individual.  It  must, 
finally,  be  a  moral  education,  which  is  easy 
to  infuse  into  young  minds  by  the  use  of 
select    stories    and    fables. 

Reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  and  the  other 
branches  of  knowledge  which  form  the  con- 
structive part  of  education  are  not  ends  in 
themselves  but,  rather,  means  towards  reach- 
ing the  above-named  economic,  civic  and 
moral  ends. 

It  is  not  possible,  therefore,  to  doubt  that 
the  public  authorities  are  under  the  strictest 
obligation  to  extend  education  to  the  masses, 
and  that  in  our  country  this  duty  is  most 
pressing  because  upon  it  depends  the  issuing 
forth  from  the  state  of  subconsciousness  of 
half  the  Mexican  people. 

Hence,  the  civilizing  mission  of  our  govern- 
ment will  not  be  fulfilled  until  the  number  of 
schools  in  each  city,  town,  or  village  is 
sufficient  to  accommodate  all  children  of  school 
age.  Furthermore,  the  government,  far  from 
placing  obstacles  in  the  way  of  private 
schools,    should    favor    and    even    financially 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime  37 

assist  them,  limiting  itself,  insofar  as  elemen- 
tary education  is  concerned,  to  providing  that 
plans,  programs,  text-books,  and  official 
methods  of  education  be  adopted  which  have 
as  their  primary  and  essential  object  the 
adaptation  of  man  to  the  practical  conditions 
of  social  life. 

Instruction  imparted  in  official  institutions 
should  be  secular,  this  being  the  most  natural 
consequence  of  the  independence  of  Church 
and  State  and  the  most  perfect  guarantee  of 
religious  liberty.  By  secular,  we  understand 
that  the  public  school  should  neither  defend 
nor  attack  any  religious  dogma,  but  it  must 
expound  facts,  state  their  causes  and  disclose 
their  natural  laws,  even  though  thereby  it  con- 
tradicts this  or  that  Biblical  myth,  or  denies 
dogmas  of  revealed  truth,  or  destroys  legends 
of  miracles. 

But  there  is  a  long  step  between  this  and 
forbidding  all  religious  instruction,  or,  to 
speak  frankly.  Catholic  propaganda,  in  pri- 
vate elementary  schools;  or  carrying  intoler- 
ance so  far  as  to  close  all  schools  directed  by 
or  in  charge  of  religious  societies  or  ministers 
of  any  sect. 

Religions,  the  Catholic  among  them,  are 
not   injurious   to    the   people.     Ignorance   is 


38      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

injurious,  because  where  it  exists,  religion 
carries  to  the  soul  only  superstition.  Only 
that  dogma  is  sterile  which  is  unaccompanied 
by  the  principles  of  individual  and  social 
ethics. 

Can  anyone  deny  that  the  fear  of  God  is  an 
immeasurable  restraint  upon  the  actions  of 
the  large  majority  of  men  and  that  at  present 
at  least  there  is  no  substitute  for  it.'^  Can 
anyone  question  the  stupendous  influence 
that  the  gentle  word  and  ineffable  abnegation 
of  Christ  have  exercised  upon  the  human 
conscience.'^  How,  then,  is  it  possible  to 
contend  that  the  Christian  decalogue  will  be 
transformed  into  a  corrupting  influence  merely 
because  its  teachings  are  united  with  the 
education  of  the  rest  of  the  faculties  of  the 
child? 

We,  sincere  freethinkers,  renounce  and 
condemn  such  an  unreasonable  and  intolerant 
spirit.  We  want  many,  very  many  schools, 
we  earnestly  desire  the  education  of  the 
masses,  physical,  mental  and  moral;  but, 
above  all,  the  education  of  the  will  and  of  the 
character,  without  which  all  other  qualities 
are  barren  and  harmful,  and  with  which  even 
the  roughest  and  most  ignorant  man  becomes 
useful  to  himself,  to  his  family,  to  his  friends, 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      39 

to  his  community,  to  his  state,  and  to  his 
country.  If  we  could  attain  that  education 
without  rehgious  institutions,  we  should  pre- 
fer it;  but  inasmuch  as  that  is  impossible,  we 
welcome  any  who  wish  to  aid  us  in  this  work 
whether  they  call  themselves  Catholics  or 
reformists,  orthodox  or  heterodox,  whatever 
be  their  sect  or  creed,  so  long  as  their  standard 
of  morality  represents  the  highest  type  of 
individual-social  human  conduct. 

Nor  do  we,  freethinkers,  condemn  the  in- 
fusion of  religious  sentiments  into  man ;  rather 
do  we  long  for  them  in  the  masses,  not  on 
account  of  the  dogma  they  may  contain,  to 
which  we  are  indifferent,  but  on  account  of 
the  moral  strength  they  develop.  If  we  could 
make  a  Socrates  of  each  man,  we  would  attain 
our  ideal;  morality  for  the  sake  of  morality; 
good  for  the  sake  of  goodness. 

But,  as  it  is  impossible  to  make  philosophers 
of  all  men,  or  even  of  a  small  minority  of  men, 
because  of  the  absence  of  ethical  conceptions, 
we  welcome  religions  when  they  bring  to  us 
sentiments  of  altruism. 

With  an  intensely  broad-minded  spirit, 
the  Constitution  of  1857  thus  dealt  with  the 
problem  of  national  education.  As  to  the 
duty  of  the  State,  we  quote  the  following 


40      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

paternal  precept  of  its  article  32:  "Laws  shall 
be  enacted  to  improve  the  condition  of  in- 
dustrious Mexicans,  by  rewarding  those  who 
distinguish  themselves  in  any  science  or  art, 
to  foster  labor,  and  to  found  colleges  and 
manual  training  schools. " 

It  did  not  limit  the  power  of  founding  those 
training  schools  only  to  the  states,  but  by 
this  broad  ruling,  also  empowered  the  Federal 
Government  concurrently  to  carry  out  that 
great  essential  function  for  the  betterment  of 
the  masses;  for  the  education  of  the  people 
is  not  an  obligation  of  this  or  that  town  or 
village,  of  this  or  that  state  or  territory,  but 
rather  of  the  nation  as  a  whole. 

Since  the  Constitution  of  1857  urged  the 
Federal  Government  and  at  the  same  time 
the  states  and  municipalities  to  stimulate 
labor  and  to  found  practical  schools  of  arts  and 
crafts  as  well  as  colleges,  evidently  the  Feder- 
ation, the  states,  and  the  municipalities  were 
concurrently  empowered  to  establish  rudi- 
mentary, elementary  and  grammar  schools  in 
every  corner  of  the  Republic  and  to  work 
out  in  them  a  plan  adequate  for  civic,  economic, 
mental  and  moral  education. 

For  the  proper  understanding  of  this  subject, 
it  is  well  to  state  that  primary  schools  in 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      41 

Mexico  are  of  three  types,  namely:  "Superior 
schools,"  corresponding  to  the  grammar 
schools  as  known  in  the  United  States; 
"elementary  schools,"  comprising  only  the 
four  or  five  lower  grades  of  the  grammar 
schools,  and  finally,  the  "rudimentary 
schools,"  with  a  less  extensive  curriculum, 
intended  to  be  established  in  rural  districts 
particularly  for  the  benefit  of  the  Indian 
population  and  to  be  converted  later  on  into 
elementary   schools. 

As  to  individual  initiative,  the  Constitution 
of  1857  placed  absolutely  no  impediment  in 
its  way.  On  the  contrary,  it  sanctioned  it  in 
these  simple  words  of  Article  3:  "Instruction 
is  free." 

The  statute  which  aspires  to  raise  the  level 
of  the  masses  without  any  distinction,  to 
truly  regenerate  them  through  education,  is  a 
national  monument;  the  statute  that  com- 
mends such  a  lofty  mission  to  all  the  executive 
agencies  of  government — municipal,  state  and 
federal — is  a  national  monument;  the  statute 
that  calls  all  social  classes  to  collaborate  in 
this  great  work  without  discrimination  based 
upon  political  or  religious  creeds,  be  it  as  a 
lucrative  profession,  or  for  beneficent  motives, 
is  a  national  monument. 

Such  a  monument  is  the  Constitution  of 
185T. 


CHAPTER  V 


To  THAT  armed  ochlocracy  which  lately 
usurped  the  privilege  of  voicing  in  a  new 
Constitution  the  popular  sentiment,  was  re- 
served the  honor  of  placing  the  most  flagrant 
obstructions,  now  by  theories,  now  by  hatreds 
and  excesses,  in  the  way  of  the  civilizing 
influence  of  the  school  upon  the  illiterate 
masses. 

Up  to  the  year  1910  neither  the  states  nor 
the  municipalities  had  satisfactorily  solved 
the  problem  of  universal  education. 

Based  upon  the  figures  afforded  us  on  the 
subject  by  Miguel  E.  Schultz  (Course  in 
Geography)  and  accepting,  empirically,  the 
estimate  that  children  between  the  ages  of 
6  and  15  represent  25  per  cent,  of  the  general 
census,  we  have  drawn  up  the  following  table: 


Divisions 
of  the 
Nation 

Dependency 

Number 

of 
Schools 

Pupils 
Registered 

Annual 
Cost 

Children 

of  School 

Age 

Fed.  Dist. 
Territories 
States 

Government 
Private 

Government 
Private 

Government 
Private 

Totals 

473 
235 

216 
46 

9.221 
2,327 

96,736 
21.301 

19.610 
4.269 

616.901 
142.096 

$4,082,490 
409.080 

603.250 
18,540 

5.167.090 
1.173.670 

179.763 

58.292 

3.527.746 

12,618 

900,913 

$11,364,120 

3.765,801 

Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      43 

From    this    table    we    get    the    following 
averages : 


Division 
of  the 
Nation 

Dependency 

Annual 
Cost  per 
School 

Annual 

Cost  per 

Pupil 

%  of  Child- 
ren With 
Education 

Registra- 
tion per 
School 

Fed   Dist. 

Government 
Private 

«8,631 
1.741 

$42.20 

54 
12 

205 
91 

Territories 

Government 
Private 

2,330 
403 

25.66 
4.34 

34 

7 

91 
93 

States 

Government 
Private 

560 
504 

8.38 
8.26 

17 
4 

67 
61 

The  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  the  fore- 
going figures  are  as  exact  as  they  are  discourag- 
ing. 

The  quantitative  efficiency  of  the  official 
primary  schools  of  the  States,  counting  only 
the  schools  maintained  by  the  public  treasury, 
barely  equalled  17  per  cent  of  the  scholastic 
population. 

The  qualitative  efficiency  of  this  small 
percentage  is  not  more  flattering.  An  esti- 
mated annual  average  of  $560  per  school, 
each  with  an  average  registration  of  67  pupils, 
plainly  indicates  that  the  personnel  of  these 
schools  consisted  of  only  one  teacher  with  the 
paltry  salary  of  $30  per  month,  leaving  a 
balance  of  $200  per  year  for  rents,  and  other 
minor  expenses.  Could  instruction  imparted 
in  such  schools  conceivably  be  anything  but 
rudimentary.^ 


44      Can^anza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

The  cause  of  such  deficiency,  quantitative 
and  quaHtative,  on  the  part  of  the  States  in 
their  educative  functions  had  been  none  other 
than  lack  of  resources.  There  was  no  reason 
for  expecting  that  this  penury  would  dis- 
appear, nor  that  the  States  would  better  their 
school  systems  in  the  near  or  distant  future. 
Their  institutions  of  learning  were  so  poor, 
that  the  States  could  not  have  raised  them  to 
a  capacity  of  100  per  cent,  of  the  school 
population  except  at  a  cost  of  $29,190,666, 
an  amount  greater  than  the  sum  of  the 
revenues  of  all  the  States  and  Territories. 

Persuaded  of  this  inability  on  the  part  of  the 
States  to  fulfill  one  of  their  primary  social 
functions,  and  absolutely  convinced  of  the 
fact  that  not  only  the  progress,  but  even  the 
very  stability  of  Mexican  nationality  was 
dependent  upon  the  school,  which  alone  could 
bring  about  the  regeneration  of  the  unlearned 
masses,  when  I  assumed  the  duties  of  Secretary 
of  Public  Education  in  the  last  two  months  of 
the  administration  of  General  Diaz,  I  an- 
nounced a  new  educational  policy  on  the  part 
of  the  National  Government.  I  announced 
that  my  Department  was  determined  to 
establish  an  extensive  educational  scheme,  not 
limiting  itself  to  the  narrow  boundaries  of  the 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      45 

Federal    District    and    the    Territories,    but 
embracing    the    whole    Republic. 

It  was  not  the  intention  of  the  Federal 
Government  to  encroach  upon  the  functions 
of  the  various  States,  for  it  did  not  intend  to 
supplant  their  schools  with  the  national  ones. 
Its  purpose  was  simply  to  establish  schools 
where  there  were  none,  and  to  erase  gradually 
from  the  map  of  the  nation  those  dark  spots  of 
illiteracy,  countless  and  oppressive. 

Willingly  would  the  Federal  Government 
have  opened  elementary  schools  with  a  com- 
plete curriculum  under  the  advice  of  educa- 
tionalists; but  such  a  program  was  financially 
impossible.  In  order  to  carry  it  through, 
taking  as  a  basis  the  average  cost  of  the 
schools  run  by  the  Government  in  the  Terri- 
tories, it  would  have  required  an  additional 
annual  disbursement  of  $73,530,027,  which 
was  impossible  at  the  time  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  the  sum  total  of  the  revenues  of  the 
administration  just  barely  reached  110  million 
pesos  annually. 

Taking  facts  and  possibilities  into  consider- 
ation, therefore,  the  Department  of  Education 
submitted  a  plan  for  the  installation  of 
rudimentary  schools  with  the  simplest  courses 
of  study,  with  the  view  of  enlarging  its  scope 


46      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime. 

in  quality  and  in  quantity  in  proportion  to 
an    increase   in    revenue. 

This  project,  though  approved  by  the  Fed- 
eral Congress  of  the  Provisional  Government 
which  immediately  followed  that  of  General 
Diaz,  was  opposed  by  the  then  Governor  of 
the  State  of  Coahuila,  Venustiano  Carranza. 

He  cited  no  reasons  for  his  attitude;  he 
did  not  prove,  nor  could  he  prove,  that  the 
schools  established  in  his  state  were  sufficient 
in  number  and  capacity  or  so  located  that 
they  could  impart  education  to  all  individuals 
of  school  age.  He  limited  himself  to  setting 
forth  the  empty  conceptualism  of  State  Sover- 
eignty.* As  if  such  sovereignty  had  been 
established  for  the  purpose  of  holding  the 
people  in  ignorance,  and  worse  than  in  ignor- 
ance, in  a  state  of  subcivilization !  As  if  the 
education  of  the  masses  were  not  a  vital 
necessity  for  all  communities,  towns,  villages, 
cities,  municipalities  and  States  of  the  Feder- 
ation. 

The  Madero  Government,  which  followed 
the  Provisional  Government,  was  too  absorbed 

•The  sovereignty  of  the  States  is  a  fact  in  a  Confederation;  it  is  only  a 
restricted  home-autonomy  in  a  federal  government  originating,  as  did  that 
of  the  United  States  of  America,  "e  pluribus  unum,"  and  it  is  a  legal  fiction,  an 
empty  conceptualism  in  a  country  where  the  States  did  not  exist  before  the 
Nation  but  were  created  by  the  provisions  of  a  national  Constitution,  as  was 
the  case  in  Mexico. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      47 

in  politics  to  worry  about  carrying  out  this 
program  of  universal  education,  or  even  to 
think  seriously  of  placing  it  on  the  road  to 
fulfillment. 

The  Department  of  Education  which  I 
headed  during  the  first  months  of  the  Huerta 
administration,  was  the  one  which  revived 
the  project,  this  time  with  greater  momentum, 
faith  and  energy.  It  presented  to  the  Federal 
Congress  for  approval  a  vast  plan  for  the 
installation  of  five  thousand  rudimentary 
schools  throughout  the  country  during  the 
first  year,  with  a  view  to  following  it  up  with 
similar  efforts  in  successive  years. 

The  idea  was  accepted  with  enthusiasm  by 
all  those  who  knew  about  it;  many  private 
citizens  hastened  to  offer  their  services  free  of 
charge  to  the  Government  in  the  work  of 
setting  up  and  supervising  these  rudimentary 
schools ;  many  a  property  holder  spontaneous- 
ly offered  land  for  the  schools;  and  many 
were  the  communities  of  Indians  that  en- 
thusiastically pledged  themselves  to  work 
without  wages  in  the  construction  of  the 
buildings  if  they  were  supplied  with  the 
necessary  materials. 

So  powerful  was  this  popular  wave  of 
opinion,    that    the    Chamber    of    Deputies, 


48      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

regardless  of  political  creeds,  including,  in 
fact,  members  of  the  opposition,  approved  and 
even  increased  a  budget  of  more  than  six 
millions  of  dollars  for  the  first  year. 

The  project  of  the  Department  of  Education 
divided  the  country  into  36  scholastic  zones, 
the  boundaries  of  which  were  set,  not  accord- 
ing to  the  geographical  boundaries  of  the 
various  States,  but  according  to  the  general 
census,  the  illiterate  population  and  the 
facilities  of  communication;  and  it  subdivided 
each  zone  into  districts,  each  with  ten  schools 
which  would  be  placed  in  the  centers  of 
greatest   mental   backwardness. 

At  the  head  of  each  school  there  was  to  be 
one  teacher,  and,  wherever  necessary,  this 
teacher  would  be  provided  with  an  assistant; 
every  ten  schools  were  to  have  a  visiting  in- 
spector who  was  a  graduate  teacher  and  who 
would  take  charge  of  the  work  of  installing 
the  schools  of  his  district  and  supervise  them. 
At  the  head  of  each  zone  there  was  to  be  a 
normal  professor  under  whose  direction  there 
would  be  established  a  normal  school  for 
teachers  of  rudimentary  branches  with  a  view 
to  forming  gradually  the  teaching  staff  of 
that  institution. 

Political  events  well  known  to  all,  prevented 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      49 

the  fulfillment  of  this  really  popular  program 
for  the  actual  advancement  of  the  masses; 
a  program  which  from  its  very  nature  could 
not  but  build  Mexican  nationality  on  a  basis 
of  homogeneity  in  civilization. 

The  so-called  Constitutionalist  Government, 
headed  by  the  former  Governor  of  the  State 
of  Coahuila,  did  not  restrain  even  for  patriotic 
reasons  its  hatred  of  the  past  regime;  on  the 
contrary,  because  of  that  very  hatred,  and 
prejudiced  by  his  empty  conceptualism  of 
State  Sovereignty,  the  First  Chief  proposed 
to  the  Assembly  of  Queretaro  that  Article  32 
of  the  Magna  Charta  of  1857  should  be  struck 
out,  and  this  was  done.  According  to  this 
Article  32,  the  Federation,  the  States  and 
the  Municipalities  could  together  arrange  a 
plan  for  universal  education. 

The  First  Chief  went  further  still:  he  sub- 
mitted to  the  same  Assembly,  which  approved 
it,  a  scheme  to  deprive  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment of  the  power  to  establish  primary 
schools  in  the  States,  and  to  that  end  the 
Constitution  of  1917  dedicated  the  following 
Article  73:  "Congress  has  the  power  . 
XXVII.  To  establish  professional  schools  of 
scientific  research,  and  fine  arts,  and  technical 
education,  vocational,  agricultural  and  trade 


50      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

schools,  museums,  libraries,  observatories,  and 
other  institutions  of  higher  learning,  until  such 
time  as  these  establishments  can  be  supported 
by  private  funds.  These  powers  shall  not 
pertain  exclusively  to  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment." 

This  article,  which  authorized  the  Federal 
Government  to  establish  schools  of  higher 
education,  carefully  omitting  primary  schools, 
taken  in  conjunction  with  Article  124,  denied 
to  it  the  right  to  open  rudimentary,  elementary 
or  grammar  schools. 

The  Constitution  of  1917  consequently 
abolished  the  Department  of  Education  which 
is  as  necessary  to  an  illiterate  country  as 
water  to  a  thirsty  man.  And  it  placed  once 
and  for  all  time  an  insurmountable  obstacle — 
an  article  of  the  Constitution — in  the  wav  of 
any  action  on  the  part  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment looking  towards  the  education  of  that 
very  people  whose  welfare  and  advancement 
had  served  as  a  pretext  for  the  Carrancista 
Revolution. 

Nor  will  it  be  possible  now  to  distribute  over 
the  country  the  five  thousand  rudimentary 
schools  the  erection  of  which  was  approved  by 
a  legally  elected  Congress,  nor  will  it  be 
possible  in  the  future  to  develop  any  national 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      51 

program  for  the  regeneration  of  the  people 
by  means  of  the  school. 

If  on  the  one  hand  the  empty  nominalism 
of  State  Sovereignty  joined  with  political 
hatreds  dealt  a  death  blow  to  the  broad 
Federal  plan  of  education,  on  the  other  hand, 
religious  intolerance  was  the  cause  of  closing 
more  than  2,500  private  primary  schools 
scattered  over  the  Republic,  merely  because 
they  were  supported  or  run  by  religious  in- 
stitutions or  by  ministers  of  a  sect. 

In  fact,  opposite  the  broad  article  3  of  the 
Constitution  of  1857  which  stated  without 
reserve  that  ** instruction  is  free,"  the  Code  of 
Queretaro  inscribed  its  everlasting  ignominy 
in  the  following  retrograde  injunction:  "No 
religious  corporation,  nor  any  minister  of  a 
religious  sect  shall  be  allowed  to  found  or 
direct  schools  of  primary  education." 

As  a  pretext  for  such  a  prohibition,  it  was 
said  that  religious  propaganda  deforms  the 
morality  and  mentality  of  childhood.  But 
the  true  motives — we  have  already  proved 
them  with  authentic  quotations — were  a  politi- 
cal grudge  against  the  Catholic  clergy  and  the 
blind  spirit  of  intolerance  which  dominated 
the  Assembly  of  Queretaro. 

We    agree    that    when    dogmas,    rites,    or 


52      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

legends  take  a  higher  place  in  religious 
doctrines  than  the  canons  of  morality,  re- 
ligious propaganda  is  easily  turned  into 
superstition. 

But  superstition  is  not  combatted  by  the 
suppression  of  schools,  even  though  the  schools 
depend  for  their  support  upon  religious  in- 
stitutions. Ignorance  is  not  the  best  nor  the 
most  powerful  shield  against  fanaticism,  nor 
is  the  school  the  only  place  where  religious 
propaganda  can  be  promulgated. 

In  this  connection,  let  us  not  forget  that 
the  most  liberal  men  of  the  period  of  reform 
were  educated  in  seminaries. 

How  much  better  and  more  liberal  would  it 
have  been  to  have  recognized  the  right  of 
religious  institutions  and  ministers  of  any 
sect  to  carry  on  the  work  of  education,  though 
requiring  them  to  adopt  in  their  primary 
institutions  official  plans,  methods,  text-books, 
and  courses  of  study,  and  making  it  obligatory 
for  students  of  national  history,  moral  and 
civic,  to  undergo  examination  by  state  in- 
spectors. By  such  a  ruling,  the  government 
could  have  availed  itself  of  the  powerful  educa- 
tive force  of  the  Church,  with  the  object  of 
civilizing  the  masses  and  inculcating  in  them 
a  civic,  moral  and  sound  idea  of  nationality! 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      53 

But  how  could  one  expect  such  wonders 
from  the  Congress  of  Queretaro,  when  in  his 
famous  speech  of  the  third  of  March,  1915, 
already  quoted,  Alvaro  Obregon,  leader  of 
that  caste  of  "armed  citizens"  which  formed 
the  majority  in  the  Congress,  boasted  that 
"the  malediction  of  the  priests  carries  with 
it  a  glorification?" 

And  the  ignorant  so-called  representatives 
of  the  people  in  the  Congress  of  Queretaro 
said  through  the  mouth  of  Citizen  Bojorquez, 
,  "I  am  firmly  convinced  of  the  fact  that  the 
best  and  most  just  men,  those  who  can  best 
express  a  sentiment  and  maintain  an  ideal, 
are  those  who  have  least  cultivated  their 
intelligence,  and  this  is  not  spoken  in  praise 
of  ignorance."  (Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol. 
II,  p.  734). 

And  Congressman  Recio,  member  of  one  of 
the  reporting  committees,  supplementing  the 
foregoing  idea  spoke  as  follows:  "I  am  now 
going  to  appeal  to  the  same  element  of  the 
House,  because  the  intellectual  element  (the 
few  tolerant  representatives),  the  more  in- 
tellectual it  is  considered,  the  more  retrograde 
it  is  in  its  attitude  toward  the  progress  of 
the  masses."  (Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol. 
II,  pp.   741-2). 


54      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

What  greater  glorification  for  the  "armed 
citizens"  than  the  maledictions  of  the  priests! 
So  long  as  they  are  obtained,  what  matter  if 
2,500  primary  schools  are  closed! 

What  a  constructive  and  fertile  conceptual- 
ism,  that  of  State  Sovereignty!  So  long  as 
that  is  realized,  what  matter  if  79  per  cent,  of 
the  population  is  deprived  even  of  the  hope 
of  learning  the  alphabet? 

What  an  unspeakable  gratification  to  stupid- 
ity! To  think  that  the  government  schools 
in  the  States  have  been  decreasing  in  number 
and  that  in  the  Federal  District  they  have 
decreased  from  473  in  1910  to  360  in 
1919!* 

The  Constitution,  which  inspired  by  empty 
conceptualisms  of  State  Sovereignty,  dictated 
by  political  hatreds,  religious  intolerance, 
and  real  cretinism,  condemns  a  whole  people 
to  vegetate  in  the  most  degrading  sub- 
civilization,  does  not  voice,  cannot  voice,  the 
national  aspirations  of  the  people;  it  expresses 
those  of  a  caste;  it  is  not  national. 

Such  is  the  Constitution  of  1917! 


♦In  accordance  with  information  received  from  the  Department  of  Educa- 
tion of  the  Federal  District,  "El  Excelsior,"  a  newspaper  of  the  Capital, 
announces  that  during  the  month  of  September,  1919,  of  the  360  primary 
schools  mentioned,  224  were  closed. 


CHAPTER  VI 

No  ECONOMIC  relation  between  man  and 
man  can  last  and  reach  its  highest  eflSciency 
in  modern  communities  unless  it  is  based  upon 
equality,  not  an  equality  in  fact,  which  does 
not  exist  in  human  nature,  but  an  equality 
of  right,  without  which  the  natural  law  of  the 
economy  of  forces  cannot  operate.  All  legal 
inequality  results  in  a  lack  of  equilibrium; 
strife  among  men  instead  of  co-operation,  a 
deduction  from  instead  of  an  addition  to  or 
combination  of  energies.  The  slavery  of 
labor  and  the  abject  submission  of  the  laborer 
to  the  magnate  when  sanctioned  by  law,  are 
absurd    anachronisms. 

The  Constitution  of  1857  established  the 
principles  of  economic  equality  in  its  articles 
4  and  5.  The  first  decrees  that  every  man  is 
free  to  embrace  the  profession,  industry  or 
labor  that  best  suits  him  as  long  as  it  is  useful 
and  honorable,  and  enjoy  the  benefits  thereof, 
no  one  having  the  right  to  curtail  such 
freedom  except  as  ordained  by  law.  The 
second  abolishes  all  contracts,  pacts  or  agree- 


56      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

ments  for  work  which  have  as  an  object  the 
impairment,  loss  or  irrevocable  sacrifice  of 
man's  liberty. 

However,  when  the  Constitution  of  1857 
was  adopted  there  had  not  arisen,  at  least  in 
critical  states,  either  capitalism  or  the  conflicts 
between  capital  and  labor  to  which  the  former 
has  given  rise  in  modern  society. 

In  the  realm  of  principles,  therefore,  we 
sincerely  believe  that  the  Constitution  of 
Queretaro  makes  a  great  step  forward  in 
drawing  up  certain  laws  relative  to  the 
condition  of  the  working  classes. 

We  include  in  this  appreciation  the  re- 
strictions on  night  work  of  women,  young 
people  and  children,  the  standardizing  of  the 
length  of  a  working  day  for  young  people  and 
the  designation  of  Sunday  as  a  day  of  rest; 
the  ruling  that  the  minimum  wage,  subject 
to  conditions  in  each  locality,  shall  be  enough 
to  satisfy  the  normal  needs  of  a  laborer  and 
provide  for  his  education  and  legitimate 
recreation;  the  equality  of  wages  for  an 
equality  of  work  regardless  of  sex  or  national- 
ity; exemption  from  seizure  or  deduction  of 
the  minimum  salary ;  the  payment  of  wages  in 
legal  money;  the  construction  of  comfortable 
and    sanitarv    houses    with    moderate    rents 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      57 

for  the  laborers;  the  erection  of  schools, 
hospitals  and  other  buildings  for  general  use 
in  working  centers;  the  prohibition  of  saloons 
for  gambling  dens  in  such  centers ;  the  liability 
for  accidents  and  occupational  diseases;  the 
provisions  for  safety  in  industrial  plants;  the 
right  of  working  men  to  form  unions  or  syndi- 
cates, the  power  to  declare  themselves  in 
peaceful  strike;  the  preference  of  wages  and 
salaries  over  other  credits  in  case  of  bank- 
ruptcy; and  the  prohibition  of  certain  stipu- 
lations in  labor  contracts  relating  to  the 
already-mentioned  exemptions;  and  the  time 
and  place  of  payment  of  wages,  the  forced 
patronage  of  stores  owned  by  employers  or 
the  retention  in  whole  or  in  part  of  wages  in 
payment  of  fines. 

All  these  regulations  emancipate  labor  with 
a  view  to  making  it  a  free  factor  in  the  pro- 
duction of  wealth. 

There  are  indeed  some  precepts  that  should 
not  appear  in  a  Constitution,  on  account  of 
being  too  rigid  to  conform  with  the  variable 
conditions  of  labor  at  different  seasons  and  in 
different  regions  of  the  country ;  as  for  example, 
that  limiting  the  working  day  to  eight  hours, 
the  one  relating  to  women  employed  during 
pregnancy,    and    also    the    one    making    an 


58      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

inflexible   addition   of   100   per   cent,    of   the 
wages  for  overtime  work. 

But  the  leading  defect  of  this  Constitution 
is  that  it  errs  on  the  side  of  radicalism.  That 
labor  may  not  be  a  slave,  it  makes  it  a  tyrant; 
that  capital  may  not  enslave,  it  tyrannizes 
over  it. 

In  this  respect,  the  Constitution  of  Quere- 
taro  shows  clearly  that  in  regulating  the 
relations  of  capital  and  labor,  its  framers  were 
led  not  so  much  by  love  for  the  working-man 
as  by  hatred  for  the  capitalist,  and  for  that 
reason  we  can  only  classify  it  as  Bolshevik. 

According  to  this  new  Code,  if  the  manu- 
facturer does  not  live  up  to  his  contract,  the 
laborer  is  given  effective  and  practical  re- 
paration; if  the  laborer  is  negligent  or  remiss, 
in  theory  he  is  responsible,  but  in  practice  he 
is  immune.  If  a  court  of  arbitration  hands 
down  a  decision,  the  manufacturer  must 
submit  under  pain  of  incurring  grave  penal- 
ties, while  the  workman  remains  free  from  all 
obligation. 

There  are  very  many  cases  where  a  just 
cause  might  exist  for  dismissing  a  workman, 
but  either  it  cannot  be  substantiated  by 
evidence  or  is  found  insuflScient  by  a  court  of 
arbitration.     In  all  such  cases,  the  employer 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      59 

is  obliged  to  pay  three  months'  wages,  and 
there  will  certainly  be  more  than  enough  lazy 
fellows  who  will  dishonestly  exploit  such  a 
privilege. 

According  to  the  Constitution  of  Queretaro, 
strikes  are  declared  lawful  under  the  elastic 
condition  that  their  object  be  to  establish  an 
equilibrium  between  the  various  factors  of 
production  by  adjusting  the  rights  of  capital 
and  labor.  It  would  be  only  just  and  equit- 
able that  suspension  of  work  on  the  part  of 
producers  should  be  lawful  under  the  same 
condition.  But  such  is  not  the  case.  It 
matters  little  if  the  economic  balance  between 
capitalists  and  laborers  has  been  lost  due  to  an 
excess  of  wages  and  a  corresponding  lack  of 
profit,  the  enterprise  must  continue  to  operate 
even  though  it  be  at  a  loss.  Suspension  of 
work  is  considered  lawful  only  when  there  is 
no  equilibrium  between  the  demand  and  the 
supply  of  products  manufactured,  and  let  it 
be  understood  that  this  sole  exception  was 
admitted  to  protect  the  "  Comision  Reguladora 
de  Nenequen,"  a  concern  officially  belonging 
to  the  Government  of  the  State  of  Yucatan, 
at  the  time  the  Constitution  of  Queretaro 
was  being  discussed. 

However,  the  most  momentous  innovation 


60      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

is  the  article  which  obHges  all  enterprises, 
agricultural,  commercial,  industrial  or  mining, 
to  give  the  workman  a  share  in  the  profits. 

This  precept  will  either  not  be  put  into 
practice  or  will  result  in  most  chaotic  arbitrar- 
iness and  corruption  on  the  part  of  the  men 
appointed  to  carry  it  through.  What  basis 
will  be  used  to  determine  the  share?  What 
proportion,  in  consideration  of  the  length, 
nature  and  quality  of  the  service  of  the  work- 
man; what  allowance  for  risks  and  differences 
in  estimates  will  be  used  as  a  basis  for  an 
equitable    division  .^^ 

Viewing  it  from  another  angle,  if  this  en- 
actment that  frames  a  seductive  ideal  which 
should  be  pursued  as  a  goal  of  civilization, 
were  sanctioned  in  all  countries,  and  if  the 
economic,  social  and  political  conditions  of 
Mexico  could  be  compared  with  those  of 
other  nations,  then  the  enterprises  would  not 
run  the  risk  of  being  ruined  on  account  of 
the  workman's  share  in  the  profits. 

Facts  are  different:  Mexico,  setting  an 
example  to  the  world,  may  have  written  the 
most  beautiful  page  in  romantic  literature, 
but  she  has  made  the  existence  of  the  working- 
man  more  precarious  still;  for  we  must  not 
forget  that  capital,  whatever  its  nationality 


is  Bolshevik  Regime      61 

may  be,  migrates  towards  those  regions  of 
the  world  where  it  can  obtain  the  greatest 
profits;  and  without  capital,  there  can  be 
no  factories,  no  industries,  no  progressive 
acquirement  of  wealth,  under  our  present 
economic   methods. 

And  when  in  addition  to  the  above,  we  take 
into  consideration  the  fact  that  in  the  con- 
flicts between  the  two  factors  of  production, 
the  deciding  vote  in  the  courts  of  arbitration 
is  left  to  a  salaried  representative  of  the 
government,  no  one  can  doubt  the  sad  results 
of  such  a  system  of  inequality;  because  those 
who  constitute  that  government  at  present 
are  the  armed  proletariat,  openly  hostile  to 
capital. 

In  1915,  one  of  the  Cabinet  members  of 
the  de  facto  government  longed  to  return  to 
small  industry  methods  and  so  proposed  it. 

At  the  end  of  1916,  another  Cabinet  member 
of  the  same  government,  the  "cuistre"*  of 
the  revolution,  explained  that  the  progressive 
tax  had  been  placed  upon  mining  claims  in 
order  to  force  big  enterprises  to  abandon  a 
large  number  of  their  mines. 

*"Cui9tre"  is  the  term  applied  by  H.  Taine  to  Maximilian  Robespierre. 
The  author  here  uses  the  same  term  to  designate  Luis  Cabrera,  a  phrase- 
maker  who,  on  many  occasions,  attempted  to  justify,  by  means  of  sonorous 
words,  the  worst  outrages  of  the  Carrancista  revolution. 


62      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

On  the  14th  of  December,  1918,  the  Federal 
Executive  presented  to  Congress  an  amend- 
ment to  Article  27  of  the  Constitution  of 
Queretaro  to  the  effect  that  no  suspension  of 
work  or  strike  should  be  considered  lawful, 
without  the  consent  of  the  Executive;  failure  to 
obtain  this  consent  would  result  in  the 
Executive  taking  over  the  administration  of 
private  factories  or  business  concerns  which 
in  his  judgment  might  be  of  public  interest. 

What  confidence,  what  security  can  capital- 
ists and  investors  feel  in  Mexican  industry, 
when  they  know  they  are  at  the  mercy  of  the 
whims  or  despotism  of  courts  of  arbitration 
or  of  the  Executive  Power,  and  when  they  are 
well  aware  that  these  are  both  animated  by 
hatred,  covetousness  and  ill-will  towards  men 
of  capital? 

The  scanty  Mexican  capital  still  available 
will  move  even  further  from  industrial  enter- 
prises ;  foreign  capital  will  seek  more  profitable 
fields  of  action;  factories  and  industries  will 
gradually  languish  and  eventually  disappear. 

The  workingmen  will  be  left  with  great 
prerogatives,  but  with  no  work;  with  theo- 
retical rights  and  high  wages,  but  without 
real  salaries;  with  the  vision  of  wealth,  and 
the  reality  of  penury.  Thus  they  are  living, 
thus  will  they  continue  to  live. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      63 

There  are  two  paths  to  equality.  Follow- 
ing one  we  must  raise  those  below;  following 
the  other  we  must  lower  those  above.  The 
former  is  the  way  of  love,  progress,  construc- 
tion ;  the  latter  is  that  of  grudge,  annihilation, 
Bolshevism.  The  Congressmen  of  Queretaro 
chose  the  latter,  and  for  that  reason  their  work 
is  barren  and  sterile. 


CHAPTER  VII 

As  WE  have  seen  in  preceding  chapters,  and 
shall  have  opportunity  to  emphasize  in  those 
which  follow,  the  letter  of  the  law  in  many  an 
article  of  the  Constitution  of  Queretaro  is 
Bolshevik. 

The  spirit  which  animates  such  law  is  more 
Bolshevik  still,  if  that  were  possible.  It  is 
inspired,  not  by  love  of  justice,  but  by  hatred 
of  all  non-proletariat  classes,  particularly  the 
wealthy ;  and  is  dominated  by  a  lust  for  wealth. 

The  period  of  plunder  and  spoliation  which, 
under  the  name  of  "  incautacion "  (seizure  of 
property),  prevailed  prior  to  the  adoption  of 
the  Constitution  of  Queretaro,  clearly  shows 
that  it  was  not  an  ardent  desire  for  justice 
that  really  inspired  certain  laws  of  that 
political  code. 

Such  plunder  and  robberies  were  perpetrated 
individually  by  the  so-called  "armed  citizens" 
— the  unsound  portion  of  the  proletariat  and 
the  escaped  convicts — who  ironically  assumed 
the  name  of  Constitutionalists  and  later 
became  the  nucleus  of  the  Liberal  Constitu- 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      65 

tionalist  Party ;  eventually  forming  the  major- 
ity of  the  so-called  Constituent  Congress. 

The  **cuistre"  of  the  revolution,  estranged 
from  his  former  associates,  denounced  the 
demands  of  the  so-called  "armed  citizens" 
for  money,  arms,  horses,  pasture,  provisions, 
etc.,  and  charged  them  with  having  received 
funds  amounting  to  round  millions  without 
ever  having  rendered  accounts;  impudently 
approving,  however,  the  action  taken  by 
Carranza  in  reserving  to  himself  the  preroga- 
tive of  auditing  accounts,  instead  of  submitting 
them  to  Congress,  giving  as  a  reason  that  "in 
the  history  of  Mexico  the  call  for  a  rendering 
of  military  expense  accounts  has  been  the 
origin  of  90  per  cent,  of  the  military  uprisings. 
We  do  not  doubt  that  the  First  Chief,  if  he 
is  well  acquainted  with  Mexican  history,  will 
approve  all  accounts"  (in  other  words,  that 
he  will  sanction  all  the  systematic  robberies) 
"with  relative  liberality  in  order  not  to  fall 
into  the  historic  error  of  other  eras." 
(Segunda  Meditacion,  "El  Universal,"  Mex- 
ico, June  6,  1917). 

"Under  a  normal  government,"  continues 
the  same  exponent  of  Carrancista  ethics, 
"it  is  not  conceivable  that  a  government 
oflScial  could  appropriate  government  property 


66      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

for  personal  use;  but,  during  the  Constitution- 
alist Revolution"  (and  we  must  add  also 
during  the  so-called  Constitutionalist  Govern- 
ment) "it  had,  unfortunately,  happened  with 
great  frequency."  Under  pretext  of  "incau- 
tacion"  (official  seizure),  a  large  quantity  of 
private  property  has  been  appropriated,  po- 
session  having  been  taken  presumably  for 
the  nation,  but  instead  of  handing  it  over 
directly  to  the  proper  authorities,  those  who 
seized  such  property  have  kept  it  for  their  own 
private  use,  or  have  disposed  of  it  in  order  to 
secure  funds.  It  is  needless  to  cite  proofs  of 
this  charge,  inasmuch  as  unfortunately  nearly 
all  seizures  of  enemy  property,  with  a  few 
honorable  exceptions,  have  been  made  with  the 
deliberate  intention  of  turning  to  private  use 
the  property  attached.  This  applies  to  the 
seizure  of  a  horse  or  saddle,  the  commandeer- 
ing of  seeds  and  pasture,  which  were  never 
used  for  the  benefit  of  the  troops,  and  even 
the  occupation  of  houses,  lands,  farms  and 
haciendas,  which,  having  been  attached,  were 
worked  and  exploited  directly  by  the  men 
who  attached  them,  ostensibly  for  the  purpose 
of  securing  funds  for  the  Government,  but 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  many  instances  the 
products  of  these  lands  never  reached  the  National 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      67 

Treasury.'"  (Tercera  Meditacion,  "El  Uni- 
versal," Mexico,  June  7,  1917). 

No  wonder  that  this  man,  who  was  at  the 
time  of  the  above  mentioned  outrages,  and  is 
at  present  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  of  the 
Carrancista  Government,  recently  stated  in 
an  interview  that  he  had  no  faith  in  human 
justice.  What  could  be  expected  of  a  man  so 
incapable  of  appreciating  that  sublime  virtue? 

And  the  then  First  Chief,  in  his  official 
report  of  April  15,  1917,  to  the  Congress  of 
the  Union,  was  forced  to  acknowledge  in 
the  following  terms  the  cupidity  of  his  chiefs 
and  co-workers:  "A  source  of  revenue,  more 
nominal  than  actual,  consisted  in  the  seizure 
of  enemy  property"  (all  were  considered 
enemies  who  had  property  worth  seizing) 
"and  this  seizure  of  property  was  in  the 
beginning  a  movement  of  an  entirely 
spontaneous  character"  (yes,  spontaneous, 
as  is  the  act  of  a  burglar)  "on  the  part  of  the 
military  forces  occupying  enemy  territory, 
and  who,  upon  gaining  this  territory,  seized 
the  property  of  all  those  who  were  considered 
enemies,  in  order  to  prevent  them  from 
utilizing  their  resources  against  the  revolution 
as  well  as  to  secure  funds.   .  The  First 

Chieftaincy  considered  that,  either  for  military 


68      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

purposes,  or  as  a  source  of  revenue,  or  again 
as  a  means  of  enforcing  liabilities,  the  seizure 
of  enemy  property  should  be  permitted,  subject, 
however,  to  whatever  steps  the  Government 
might  later  take  concerning  it.'' 

Thus,  by  admission  of  the  Chief  of  the 
Constitutionalist  Revolution  and  his  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  we  learn  that  the  robbery 
and  plunder  of  private  property  was  a  spon- 
taneous movement;  that  a  group  of  the  pro- 
letariat, unscrupulous  and  without  ideals, 
armed  themselves  under  the  Constitutionalist 
banner,  not  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining 
justice  for  their  brother  laborers,  but  in  order 
to  enrich  themselves. 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  therefore,  that 
in  these  seizures  of  property — robberies  or 
usurpations — no  one  took  the  trouble  to 
ascertain  whether  the  original  ownership  of 
the  property  was  legitimate  or  illegitimate, 
whether  it  had  been  acquired  unlawfully,  or 
was  the  result  of  strenuous  and  persevering 
labor  and  sacrifices;  the  only  thing  desired 
was  to  despoil  those  who  owned  anything 
whatsoever  in  order  to  enrich  those  who  had 
risen  in  arms  for  that  purpose. 

"It  pleases  me,"  said  Alvaro  Obregon, 
addressing  300  merchants,  manufacturers,  land- 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      69 

owners,  and  professional  men,  called  to  a 
meeting  in  the  city  of  Mexico  on  the  third  of 
March,  1915,  "to  see  that  you  all  have  made 
a  common  cause;  it  does  not  matter,  with  one 
rod  I  can  render  justice  to  all  .  .  .  The 
division  which  I  proudly  command  has  tra- 
versed the  Republic  from  end  to  end  followed 
by  the  maledictions  of  the  priests  and  the 
imprecations  of  the  bourgeosie!  What 
greater  glory  could  be  mine?" 

This  spirit,  of  avarice  in  some,  of  envy  in 
others,  was  what  inspired  the  deputies  of 
Queretaro. 

Anyone,  therefore,  who  presuppose  that 
equanimity  and  justice  inspired  the  mandates 
of  this  Constitution  will  never  be  able  to 
understand  it. 

The  third  paragraph  of  Article  27  says: 
"The  Nation  shall  have  at  all  times  the  right 
to  impose  on  private  property  such  limitations 
as  the  public  interest  may  demand,  as  well  as 
the  right  to  regulate  the  development  of 
natural  resources,  which  are  susceptible  of 
appropriation,  in  order  to  conserve  them  and 
equitably  to  distribute  the  public  wealth. 
For  this  purpose  necessary  measures  shall  be 
taken  to  divide  large  landed  estates ;  to  develop 
small  landed  holdings ;  to  establish  new  centers 


70      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

of  rural  population  with  such  lands  and  waters 
as  may  be  indispensable  to  them;  to  en- 
courage agriculture  and  to  prevent  the  destruc- 
tion of  natural  resources,  and  to  protect 
property  from  damage  detrimental  to  society. " 

In  any  other  Constitution,  or  any  other 
place,  this  law  would  not  be  reprehensible; 
it  would  merely  denote  that  which  is  implied 
in  every  civilized  country  by  eminent  domain 
of  the  State  over  the  land;  the  undeniable 
right  of  the  State  to  exercise  high  police 
duty  over  the  natural  resources  that  exist  as 
force  or  matter  in  the  soil  and  the  sub-soil. 

The  letter  of  the  article  is  clear  and  precise; 
it  speaks  solely  of  the  principles  governing 
landed  'property  and  natural  resources  which 
may  be  found  suitable  for  appropriation  in 
the   land. 

But  the  Bolshevik  spirit  made  the  law  speak 
where  it  was  silent.  The  circular  of  Septem- 
ber 6th,  1917,  issued  by  the  Executive  of  the 
Union,  declared  that  any  private  industries 
which  suspended  their  work  should  be  taken 
over  by  the  Government,  for  "no  one  has  the 
right  to  lessen  the  production  of  social  wealth, 
particularly  when  that  wealth  is  insufficient  to 
meet  the  needs."  and  "when  the  suspension  of 
work  affects  the  rights  of  society,  crippling 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      71 

wealth  or  engendering  trouble  for  the  public 
administration,  the  temporary  or  permanent 
suspension  of  the  enterprise  violates  the 
spirit  and  letter  ( !)  of  Article  27  of  the  Consti- 
tution, which  gives  to  the  Government  the 
right  to  take  over  the  immediate  control  of  it 
for  the  good  of  the  masses. " 

And  the  Federal  Congress  in  its  decree  of 
November  27th,  1917,  approved  the  doctrine 
of  the  Executive,  authorizing  him  to  take 
over  industrial  concerns,  and  operate  them  in 
case  of  temporary  or  permanent  suspension  of 
work  when  such  suspension  is  not  permitted 
by  the  Constitution. 

The  Executive,  however,  was  not  sure  as 
to  the  constitutionality  of  his  doctrine,  and  on 
the  14th  of  December,  1918,  proposed  the 
following  addition  to  the  amended  Article  27 
quoted  above:  "Private  business  concerns  or 
plants  belonging  to  individuals  or  corporations 
and  of  public  interest  cannot  be  closed  on 
account  of  strike,  lockout  or  any  other  analog- 
ous reason  without  previously  obtaining  the 
authorization  of  the  Executive  who  shall  be 
empowered  to  administer  them  if,  in  his 
opinion  the  strike  or  lockout  may  be  detri- 
mental to  the  interests  of  society  or  the  needs  of 
public   works.     The    obstacles    having    been 


72      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

cleared  away,  the  Government  shall  then 
return  to  the  owners  or  their  legitimate 
representatives,  the  concerns  which  have 
been  taken  over,  and  will  deliver,  at  the  same 
time,  the  net  profits  obtained  during  the 
government  management.  Those  concerns 
or  plants  shall  be  deemed  of  public  interest 
which  provide  means  of  communication,  such 
as  railroads,  telegraphs,  telephones,  cables, 
radiographs,  radiotelephones  and  street  rail- 
ways; also  pharmacies,  burial,  light,  water 
and  city  sewerage  service,  mining  industries, 
including  those  that  treat  as  well  as  those  that 
extract  the  raw  material;  the  petroleum  and  com- 
bustible mineral  industries;  agricultural  enter- 
prises; textile  factories  operated  by  electricity, 
water,  steam  or  any  other  power;  and  all  other 
concerns  of  equal  or  greater  importance,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  Executive.*' 

We  would  have  nothing  to  say  against  this 
project  if  it  merely  authorized  the  Executive, 
in  case  of  strike  or  lockout,  to  operate  those 
concerns  which  are  for  public  utility,  provided 
that,  on  doing  so,  he  would  insure  a  return 
equal  at  least  to  the  average  return  previously 
made  by  said  concerns  in  a  period  of  normal 
operation. 

All  enterprises  furnishing  a  public  service, 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      73 

such  as  cemeteries,  water;  light  and  power 
plants,  and  city  drainage  systems,  telegraphs, 
telephones,  street-cars,  railroads  and  regular 
transportation  by  land  or  water;  docks  and 
other  harbor  improvements,  although  organ- 
ized for  individual  gain,  have,  under  general 
conditions,  as  their  principal  object  a  public 
utility.  Such  enterprises,  therefore,  are  not  at 
liberty  to  render  or  refuse  at  their  will  these 
services;  inasmuch  as  they  have  contracted 
the  obligation  of  furnishing  them  and  for  that 
reason  the  State  allows  them  the  specific  use 
of  public  or  common  property  such  as  the 
surface  or  subsoil  of  streets  and  public  roads, 
of  river  and  maritime  zones  which  belong 
exclusively  to  the  State;  and  furthermore, 
the  State  invests  them  with  the  power  of 
expropriation  solely  on  account  of  the  public 
service  which  they  pledge  themselves  to  perform 
In  these  enterprises,  called  "quasi-public" 
in  legal  technical  terms,  the  individual  ie 
substituted  for  the  State  in  the  discharge  of 
certain  functions  essential  to  the  people,  and  for 
that  very  reason,  if  he,  the  individual,  does  not 
meet  the  obligations  which  he  has  assumed, 
the  State  has  the  right,  according  to  the  needs 
of  the  case,  to  put  an  end  to  the  substitution 
either  temporarily  or  permanently. 


74      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

But  there  is  a  big  diflFerence  between  an 
enterprise  of  public  utility,  such  as  those  above- 
mentioned,  and  a  private  business,  the  progress 
and  continuation  of  which  may  be  considered 
of  public  interest. 

As  a  matter  of  principle  and  of  fact,  any 
private  enterprise  is  of  interest  to  the  commun- 
ity ;  because,  whatever  its  nature  or  the  sphere 
of  its  operations  may  be,  even  though  it  is 
undertaken  merely  for  the  private  profit 
of  the  owner,  its  existence  is  possible  only 
if  it  is  of  service  to  the  community,  whether 
extracting  the  products  of  the  soil  or  subsoil; 
cultivating  it,  utilizing  its  energies;  turning 
matter  or  force  to  human  use,  or  transporting 
goods  from  the  place  of  production  to  the  place 
of  consumption. 

In  the  same  way  that  the  aggregate  of 
private  wealth  constitutes  public  wealth, 
the  aggregate  of  private  interests  constitutes 
public  interest. 

But  community  interest  does  not  exact, 
nor  can  it  exact,  the  socialization  of  all  private 
property,  nor  the  socialization  of  all  industries. 

On  the  contrary,  community  interest,  so 
long  as  it  does  not  deal  directly  with  the 
enterprises  which  by  their  nature  are  public 
utilities,  demands  liberty  of  action,  economic 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      75 

liberty,  individual  initiative,  which  not  only 
includes  the  right  to  start  those  enterprises 
when  considered  convenient,  the  right  to  fix 
the  scale  of  operation,  and  increase  or  diminish 
it  in  proportion  to  the  emergencies  of  supply 
and  demand,  and  in  proportion  to  the  cost  or 
production  and  the  market  value  of  the  pro- 
duct, but  it  also  includes  the  right  to  close 
these  concerns,  when  to  carry  them  on  does 
not  pay  or  for  any  other  reason  is  detrimental 
to  the  promoter. 

As  far  as  private  enterprises  are  concerned, 
public  interest  is  best  served  by  free  competi- 
tion. The  intervention  of  the  State  has  not 
been  proved  justifiable  either  theoretically 
or  practically. 

Theoretically,  if  the  incentive  of  individual 
interest  is  destroyed,  initiative  disappears, 
industries  tend  to  become  stationary,  and 
where  there  is  no  progress,  inevitably  there  is 
retrogression. 

Practically,  all  attempts  on  a  large  or  on  a 
small  scale  which  have  been  made  for  the 
socialization  of  economic  activity  have  been 
an  utter  failure,  not  only  because  of  the  lack  of 
individual  initiative  which  we  have  referred 
to,  but  also  on  account  of  the  often  proved 
innate  unfitness  of  governments  to  act  as 
agents  of  production. 


76      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

The  unwholesome  influence  of  politics  and 
party  obligations,  the  waste  of  public  funds, 
the  automatism  and  routine  of  government 
machinery,  not  to  mention  the  opportunities 
for  corruption  and  fraud,  are  many  more 
causes  which  have  brought  disaster  to  private 
enterprises  in  the  hands  of  governments. 

We  do  not  wish  to  cite  the  unflattering 
results  recorded  in  the  United  States  by  the 
transference  to  government  control  during  the 
war  of  railroads,  cable  and  telegraph  lines. 
It  would  be  enough  for  us  to  mention  what 
has  happened  in  Mexico  in  relation  to  the 
national  railroads,  the  Mexican  Railroad,  and 
the  electric  street-railways,  the  control  of 
which  was  taken  over  by  the  administration. 

But  for  our  purpose,  we  shall  confine  our- 
selves to  quoting  the  following  figures  taken 
from  "El  Universal,"  a  government  news- 
paper of  the  City  of  Mexico,  dated  March  15, 
1919,  relative  to  the  administration,  during 
the  preceding  four  months,  of  private  properties 
which  had  been  illegally  seized  by  the  Federal 
Government : 


Income $992,374. 11 

Cost  of  management 675,261 .  63 

Net  profit $317,112.48 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      77 

The  cost  of  management — nothing  more  nor 
less  than  the  cost  of  management — of  the 
seized  property  consumed  68  per  cent,  of  the 
income  producing  power  of  that  property. 

Can  any  argument  more  eloquent  be  offered 
against  the  socialization  of  private  enterprises.'^ 

For  this  very  reason,  our  unshaken  convic- 
tion is  that  properly  to  look  after  social 
interests,  the  power  of  the  government  to 
interfere  in  the  management  of  private  enter- 
prises should  be  limited  to  those  which  are  in 
the  nature  of  public  utilities. 

Moreover,  as  private  concerns  seek  profit  at 
the  same  time,  both  justice  and  public  interest 
demand  that  in  case  of  a  forced  resumption  of 
work,  the  government  guarantee  the  average 
profits  obtained  during  a  reasonable  period  of 
normal  work. 

Since  the  State,  instead  of  attending  directly 
to  public  service,  authorizes  a  private  concern 
to  do  so  for  commercial  ends,  it  is  pledged  not 
to  frustrate  the  expectations  which  gave  rise 
to  such  enterprise,  just  as  that  enterprise  is 
pledged  not  to  defraud  the  public  of  the 
service  for  which  it  was  authorized :  such  is  the 
equation  between  individual  and  social  inter- 
est; between  the  right  of  the  individual  and 
the  right  of  society. 


78      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

On  the  other  hand,  justice  is  not  at  vari- 
ance with  the  legitimate  claims  of  the  people. 
Public  authority  has  an  interest  in  promoting 
and  developing  this  class  of  enterprises  for 
the  benefit  of  the  community.  The  primary 
requisite  for  initiation  and  development  in  all 
private  economic  activity  is  safety.  If  in- 
dividuals do  not  feel  secure,  they  will  either 
fail  to  contribute  their  brains  and  their 
money  to  the  performance  of  public  services 
or  they  will  enter  into  them  with  the  deliberate 
intention  of  immediately  obtaining  dispro- 
portionate gains  to  cover  possible  future 
losses.  In  either  case,  the  result  is  detri- 
mental to  the  very  public  which  should  be 
served. 

In  its  context,  the  amendment  to  Article 
27  proposed  by  the  Executive  to  the  Congress 
of  the  Union,  not  only  ignores  the  laws  of 
social-economic  science  but  it  is  a  serious 
menace  to  the  spirit  of  enterprise  in  all  lines  of 
production. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  authorizes  the  taking 
over  of  business  enterprises,  when  the  Execu- 
tive, a  single  man,  responsible  to  no  one  by  the 
very  terms  of  the  Constitution,  holds  the  opinion 
that  the  interests  of  society  may  be  interfered 
with.     Let  it  be  noted  that  the  law  does  not 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      79 

even  require  that  the  said  interests  be  actually 
impaired,  but  that  the  simple  possibility  is 
enough. 

This  most  dangerous  power  of  the  Govern- 
ment extends  to  mining,  agricultural,  metallur- 
gical and  textile  enterprises;  and  what  is 
even  more  dangerous,  the  Executive  reserves 
the  right  to  discriminate  and  determine  what 
other  enterprises  are  of  an  analogous  character. 

Shoe  and  hat  factories,  wheat  and  corn  mills, 
and,  in  general,  those  industries  whose  pro- 
ducts are  of  most  general  need,  can  fall  at 
any  moment  into  the  administrative  vortex. 
Moreover,  as  the  State  does  not  ofiFer  any 
guaranties  whatsoever  relative  to  the  profits  of 
these  enterprises  while  under  its  control, 
there  is  provided  no  possible  check  to  arbitrar- 
iness and  plunder,  nor  any  limit  to  uncertainty 
and  insecurity. 

The  proposed  amendment  goes  even  further: 
after  enslaving  capital  and  the  spuit  of  enter- 
prise, it  enslaves  labor,  for  it  denies  to  laborers 
the  right  to  go  on  strike.  Thus  capital  and 
labor  are  equalized  not  so  much  in  the  be- 
stowal of  rights  as  in  the  denial  of  them. 

In  a  previous  chapter  I  have  stated  why  I 
consider  it  a  progressive  step  in  the  realm  of 
principles    to    have    a    constitutional    clause 


80      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

recognizing  the  right  of  the  working  classes  to 
go  on  strike.  Only  on  that  condition  is  man 
truly  free;  without  such  a  right  he  is  a  servant 
or  slave,  and  the  freedom  of  labor  is  a  requisite 
not  only  for  the  prosperity  of  the  proletariat, 
but  also  for  the  general  progress  of  society. 

The  explanation  accompanying  the  presi- 
dential draft  of  the  constitutional  amendment 
stated,  however,  that  the  idea  which  the 
Executive  adopted  is  progressive;  that  is, 
"that  the  Chief  Executive,  in  his  capacity 
of  regulator  of  social  problems,  was  the  only 
power  representing  the  State  that  could 
decide  whether  or  not  there  should  be  a 
suspension  of  work,  and  whether  labor  or 
capital  were  at  fault. " 

We  cannot  but  call  retrograde  such  an  idea. 
As  old  as  the  ages,  it  has  served  in  all  countries 
as  a  support  of  economic  despotism:  upon  it 
have  been  based  successively  social  and 
individual  slavery,  serfdom,  guilds,  monopoT 
lies,  sumptuary  laws,  price-fixing,  restrictions 
affecting  international  commerce,  and  all 
other  restraints  which  humanity  has  constantly 
been  striving  to  remove. 

From  time  to  time,  however,  during  periods 
of  retrogression,  that  same  "progressive  idea" 
to  which  Carranza  alludes  has  appeared  under 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      81 

different  names.  Now  it  is  called  Bolshevism, 
and  is  the  fruit  of  the  Carrancista  tree. 

Since  this  faction  found  it  necessary  to 
flatter  the  unarmed  proletariat  so  as  to  be 
able  to  destroy,  rob  and  plunder  the  other 
social  classes,  it  assumed  a  pose  in  favor  of 
the  sacred  rights  of  the  working  man,  and 
for  that  reason  in  the  Constitution  of  Quere- 
taro  it  sanctioned  strikes. 

But  as  soon  as  this  Constitution  had  been 
approved,  and  the  Carrancista  faction  had 
become  enriched  with  the  product  of  its 
rapine  during  the  period  of  revolution,  all  it 
wished  for  the  future  was  the  opportunity  to 
utilize  its  power  to  further  enrich  itself. 

It  would  give  no  thought  to  the  welfare  of 
the  working  classes,  nor  would  it  listen  to 
their  clamors.  Just  as  formerly  it  wore  the 
mask  of  proletarianism  to  grasp  power,  now 
it  wears  the  mask  of  social  interest  that  it 
may  vest  the  Government,  which  is  nothing 
but  that  same  neo-military  Carrancista  caste, 
with  the  most  despotic  authority  over  people 
and    property. 

Consequently,  it  does  not  recognize  the 
right  of  capital  to  manage  its  own  enterprises 
even  though  they  are  not  public  utilities;  and  it 
likewise  will  not  allow  the  workingman  the 


82      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

right  to  choose  with  freedom  the  nature  and 
conditions  of  his  labor. 

The  most  conservative  organ  of  the  adminis- 
tration in  the  City  of  Mexico,  "El  Universal," 
supplies  us  with  the  strongest  proof  of  our 
assertion. 

In  its  issue  of  May  8th,  1919,  it  furnished 
us  with  the  news  that  the  Permanent  Com- 
mitee  of  the  Federal  Congress  had  been 
obliged  to  start  an  investigation  as  to  the 
fate  of  several  workingmen  who  had  disappeared, 
because  suspicions  of  a  serious  crime  rested 
upon  the  Executive  Power.  The  unarmed 
proletariat  is  just  beginning  to  fall  under  the 
murderous  blow  of  Cain! 

The  same  newspaper,  in  a  recent  editorial 
relative  to  the  coming  presidential  elections, 
forswearing  the  anti-military  policy  which 
has  characterized  it  since  its  origin,  does  not 
hesitate  to  declare  that  the  next  president  of 
the  Republic  cannot  be  a  civilian  because,  if 
he  were,  political  stability  would  be  in 
danger;  in  other  words,  the  military  caste 
claims  as  its  very  own,  the  national  govern- 
ment, and  through  it  all  the  resources  of  the 
nation. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      83 

Bolshevism  is  the  absolutism  of  the  one- 
time proletariat-in-arms  over  the  rest  of 
society.  The  Carrancistas  now  aim  to  perfect 
the  Bolshevism  of  the  Constitution  of  Quere- 
taro! 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Since  writing  the  preceding  chapter, 
events  have  happened  to  prove  that  just  as 
Bolshevik  as  those  who  drew  up  the  Constitu- 
tion of  1917  are  those  charged  with  enforcing 
it.  They  must  interpret  it  so  as  to  favor  only 
those  in  power,  sacrificing  not  only  the 
middle  and  wealthy  classes,  but  that  part  of 
the  proletariat  which  is  not  in  arms. 

The  most  active  participants  in  the  Carran- 
cista  revolution,  in  addition  to  the  criminals 
and  renegades,  were  the  proletarians,  or  to 
be  more  exact,  the  disorderly  part  of  them. 
The  recruits  of  the  revolutionary  mobs  were 
peons  and  day  laborers,  the  majority  of  the 
latter  being  railroad  workers.  The  theorists 
of  those  mobs  were  ruined  intellectualists,  a 
large  number  of  them  school  teachers.  A 
number  of  laborers  and  not  a  few  school 
teachers  occupied  seats  in  the  so-called  Con- 
stituent Congress  of  Queretaro. 

I  have  already  stated  in  part  what  these 
proletariat  classes  conceived  and  formulated. 
Under  pretense  of  uplifting  the  workingman, 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      85 

they  established  in  the  constitutional  system, 
the  retroactivity  of  laws;  insecurity  for  capital, 
and  spoliation  of  lands.  Such  is,  in  fact, 
the  synthesis  of  a  good  portion  of  Articles 
123,  27,  28  and  other  articles  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  Queretaro,  which  I  have  already 
partially  considered  and  propose  to  continue 
analyzing. 

The  proletarians,  elevated  to  the  rank  of 
"armed  citizens,'*  were  as  fruitful  in  laws 
tending  to  destroy  social  harmony,  as  they 
were  barren  of  constructive  enactments. 

The  great  material  basis  for  the  economic 
betterment  of  the  proletariat,  particularly 
for  the  proletariat  of  brawn,  would  have  been 
the  encouragement  of  capital  which  by  this 
time  had  been  driven  away  and  ruined  by 
the  revolution,  that  it  might  return  to  the 
country  and  be  invested  in  working,  improving 
and  irrigating  lands,  a  condition  indispensable 
to  the  ultimate  division  and  distribution  of 
these  lands,  for  developing  industries  already 
established  and  for  starting  new  ones. 

The  great  psychological  basis  for  the  uplift 
of  the  proletariat  would  have  been  a  program 
of  universal  national  education,  so  that  the 
light  of  truth  might  be  carried  to  every  section 
of  the  country,  character  strengthened,  and 


86      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

new  desires  engendered  in  the  humble  classes 
along  with  the  legitimate  ambition  to  satisfy 
them  with  the  wages  of  labor. 

Nor  was  anything  inserted  in  the  Constitu- 
tion of  1917  to  serve  as  a  magnet  and  channel 
for  the  influx  of  capital,  and  whatever  was 
done  relative  to  national  education  was  de- 
structive, since  there  was  denied  to  the 
Federal  Government  the  power  to  establish 
primary  schools  outside  of  the  Federal  District 
and  Territories,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
closure  of  a  large  number  of  private  schools 
was  forced  at  one  blow. 

The  result  has  been  that  the  proletariat, 
instead  of  improving,  has  deteriorated;  and 
instead  of  earning  higher  wages,  merely 
exists  under  the  oppressive  burden  of  the 
increased  cost  of  living. 

The  Government,  that  government  born 
of  the  armed  portion  of  the  proletariat, 
instead  of  increasing  the  wages  of  the  working- 
man  and  the  teacher,  has  been  the  first  to 
diminish  them  so  considerably  as  to  bring 
them  to  the  verge  of  starvation. 

The  railroads  taken  over  by  the  adminis- 
tration were  the  first  to  reduce  wages  25  per 
cent. 

The  National  Government  and  the  various 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      87 

States  of  the  Republic,  with  one  lone  excep- 
tion, have  diminished  the  number  of  schools, 
the  number  of  teachers  and  the  latters' 
salaries,  and  still  further,  they  have  frequently 
suspended  the  payment  of  these  salaries, 
thus  condemning  the  educators  of  youth  to 
dishonor  or  death  by  starvation. 

"In  these  latter  days,"  say  the  teachers  of 
primary  schools  in  their  manifesto  of  May 
12th,  1919,  "popular  education  in  the  Federal 
District  is  in  a  lamentable  state  of  deteriora- 
tion. One  sees  the  closing  of  schools  and  an 
endless  reduction  of  personnel;  teachers  have 
been  subject  for  a  long  time  to  reductions  of 
salary,  besides  being  owed  large  sums;  their 
salaries  are  paid  with  an  exasperating  irregu- 
larity and  they  faint  from  hunger  in  the  very 
classrooms;  they  are  denied  the  materials 
necessary  for  teaching;  they  are  compelled 
to  work  in  buildings  which  become  more 
worthless  and  unhygienic  every  day,  and  they 
are  made  the  object  of  marked  disdain  in  all 
society.  The  education  which  they  have 
imparted,  therefore,  has  been  deficient,  nig- 
gardly, paltry  and  not  at  all  adequate  to  the 
great  needs  and  lofty  aspirations  of  this 
people.  Moreover,  this  factor  of  regeneration 
has  become  a  despised  burden  in  the  eyes  of 


88      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

the  authorities  .  .  .  And,  therefore,  con- 
vinced after  a  long  and  bitter  experience,  that 
popular  education  has  been  converted  into  a 
painful  social  sore;  taking  into  consideration 
that  society  makes  us  every  moment  more 
and  more  responsible  because  it  notes  the 
failure  of  education,  a  failure  which  the 
teachers  are  not  responsible  for,  the  school 
teachers  cannot  but  tear  to  pieces  the  veil 
which  hides  a  false  situation;  they  cannot, 
nor  do  they  wish  to,  become  accomplices  in 
so  serious  a  state  of  affairs. 

"Fellow-citizens:  be  it  known  that  edu- 
cation is  not  taken  care  of:  that  education  is 
not  paid  for;  that  the  measures  taken  by  the 
authorities  are  carrying  the  people  straight 
to  illiteracy,  for  which  we  are  not  responsible. 

"And  rather  than  countenance  these  meas- 
ures, rather  than  view  the  magnitude  of  this 
failure  with  indifference,  and  thus  become 
accomplices  in  this  failure,  they  prefer  to 
suspend  their  labors  until  the  legislation  of 
the  country,  and  particularly  that  of  the 
Federal  District,  may  satisfactorily  protect 
the  rights  of  the  Mexican  people." 

And  the  school  teachers  gave  up  their 
posts  and  the  schools  remained  closed.  Not 
a  vestige  of  sympathy  for  the  victims  from 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regiine    89 

the  interpreters  of  the  Bolshevik  Constitution 
of  1917! 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  a  former 
school  teacher  and  now  a  rich  grandee — a  very 
natural  metamorphosis  for  one  who  extolled 
anarchy  and  its  transgressions  with  the  cyni- 
cal slogan  "revolution  is  revolution" — does 
not  concede  to  his  former  colleagues  the  right 
to  refuse  to  work  without  remuneration;  he 
does  not  believe  social  interests  to  be  hurt  by 
the  closing  of  schools  of  primary  education. 
"The  main  question,"  he  says,  "is  whether 
government  employees  can  enjoy  what  may 
be  called  the  right  to  go  on  strike,  that  is,  the 
right  to  work  or  not,  according  to  their 
judgment,"  for  "a  strike  is  a  suspension  of 
work  with  the  object  of  bringing  pressure  to 
bear  upon  employers  or  capitalists  by  means 
of  the  damage  that  may  be  done  to  their 
interests  by  such  suspension;"  "the  damage 
caused  is  not  even  to  society  in  general,  but 
chiefly  to  the  children  of  the  middle  and  lower 
classes  who  are  the  ones  that  attend  the 
schools"  and  "the  suspension  of  work  tends 
to  harm  not  the  governing  class,  but  the 
children  of  the  poor  and  middle  classes." 
(Interview  given  to  "El  Universal,"  Mexico, 
May  15th,  1919). 


90      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

The  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  "the  proper 
official  to  whose  vigilance  is  entrusted  the 
upholding  of  the  Constitution,"  classifies 
as  "vicious  in  origin  and  arbitrary  in  action 
the  strike  called  by  the  teachers, "  because  "to 
admit  the  right  of  the  teachers,  servants  of 
the  nation,  to  go  on  strike,  would  from  the 
Government  standpoint  be  equivalent  to 
such  an  absurdity  as  recognizing  a  strike  of  the 
State  against  the  State,"  and  "these  ideas 
which  are  strictly  logical  and  of  obvious 
democratic  discipline  .  .  .  are  exactly  in 
accordance  with  the  categorical  precepts  of 
the  various  laws  which  govern  us.  In  fact, 
the  Supreme  Code  names  as  the  exclusive 
prerogative  of  the  Chief  Executive,  the  right 
to  appoint  employees  and  to  remove  them 
freely,  whether  they  are  cabinet  members  or 
persons  in  the  most  humble  positions;  and 
the  penal  law  punishes  in  very  concrete 
terms  the  disobedience  or  carelessness  of 
the  employee  who  deserts  his  post,  inasmuch 
as  it  is  obviously  impossible  to  leave  to  the 
whim  or  the  convenience  of  the  individual 
the  discretional  discharge  of  duties  exacted 
by  social  progress."  (Manifesto  of  the  Exe- 
cutive, May,  1919). 

Oh  false  one-time  champions  of  the  prole- 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      91 

tariat;  ingenuous  priests  of  the  Constitution 
of  Queretaro,  it  is  not  love  for  the  destitute 
classes  who  live  by  the  fruits  of  their  toil,  nor 
a  regard  for  social  welfare  which  has  impelled 
and  continues  to  impel  your  actions,  but 
covetousness,  and  grudges  against  successful 
men! 

Obviously,  it  would  be  contrary  to  order 
and  discipline  in  the  public  administration  as 
well  as  prejudicial  or  dangerous  to  the  nation, 
to  recognize  the  right  of  government  employees 
to  go  on  strike  as  a  coercive  means  for  obtain- 
ing an  increase  in  salary;  because  the  appro- 
priations for  public  expenditure  are  not,  nor 
should  they  be,  determined  by  the  will  or 
action  of  a  certain  social  class,  as  for  instance 
the  employees,  but  rather  they  are,  and  should 
be,  the  expression  of  the  national  will  mani- 
fested by  means  of  the  duly  established 
legislative  branch  of  the  Administration. 

Public  employees,  barring  only  those  very 
exceptional  cases  where  service  is  obligatory 
by  Constitutional  precept,  are  free  to  accept 
or  refuse  work  as  they  are  also  free  to  resign 
it;  inasmuch  as  "no  one  can  be  compelled  to 
render  personal  services  without  his  full 
consent."  If  the  remuneration  is  not  satis- 
factory,   the    remedy,    as    far    as    individual 


92      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

interest  is  concerned,  is  to  refuse  the  position 
or  to  resign  it,  and  as  far  as  the  collective  in- 
terests of  good  public  service  is  concerned,  the 
correction  should  be  sought  in  political  plat- 
forms, in  election  work,  and  in  the  use  of  the 
vote  to  elect  to  the  legislative  bodies  men  who 
are  willing  to  vote  in  favor  of  just  and  equit- 
able remunerations. 

But  the  case  which  prompted  the  state- 
ments of  the  Secretaries  of  the  Treasury 
and  the  Interior  was  not  a  strike  of  teachers 
called  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  salaries 
higher  than  those  set  by  law ;  it  was  especially 
and  fundamentally  called  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  for  those  teachers  a  guaranty  that 
their  labors  would  be  remunerated  as  pre- 
scribed by  law,  inasmuch  as  the  Municipal 
Governments  of  the  Federal  District  had 
shown  that  they  were  unable  to  pay  such 
compensations,  putting  off  the  payment  of 
the  teachers'  salaries  until  the  month  of 
September,  1918;  and  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment, after  assuming  those  payments  for 
some  months,  had  finally  resolved  in  April  of 
that  year  to  suspend  them  and  let  the  school 
teachers  die  of  starvation. 

Under  the  terms  of  the  Constitution  of  1857, 
reiterated  also  by  that  of  Queretaro,  "no  one 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      93 

can  be  compelled  to  render  services  without  just 
compensation,  "except  in  specific  cases  in  which 
that  of  the  school  teachers  was  not  included. 

Therefore,  in  spite  of  being  employees 
of  the  government,  they  had  the  right  to  dis- 
continue their  services,  since  they  were  not 
remunerated  and  sad  experience  gave  them  no 
guaranties  that  they  would  be  remunerated 
in  the  future.  Even  the  letter  of  the  law, 
in  the  Bolshevik  Constitution  of  1917,  sup- 
ported them  in  their  stand. 

But  the  letter  of  the  law  is  worthless  when 
it  is  not  animated  by  the  spirit,  and  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Constitution  of  1917,  there  is  no 
true  love  for  the  poor  but  useful  classes.  In 
the  soul  of  the  government  emanating  from 
that  Constitution,  there  is  also  no  sympathy 
towards  them;  there  is  envy  and  there  are 
grudges  against  other  classes;  there  are  ambi- 
tions of  a  faction  which  yesterday  was  with- 
out caste  and  today  is  feudal. 

About  two  weeks  ago  the  school  teachers  of 
Los  Angeles  gathered  together  and  decided 
in  view  of  the  present  high  cost  of  living, 
to  ask  for  a  raise  in  salary,  with  the  under- 
standing that  if  it  were  not  granted  they 
would  not  renew  their  contracts  for  the  next 
scholastic  year. 


94      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

This  action  of  the  teachers  awakened 
nothing  but  sympathy  among  all  the  social 
classes  and  in  every  rank  of  community; 
and  the  Board  of  Education  had  to  pass 
favorably  upon  the  request. 

Such  is  the  course  taken  by  governments 
when  guided  by  considerations  of  equity  and 
national  interest;  they  submit  to  the  dictates 
of  public  opinion. 

In  Mexico,  the  decision  of  the  teachers  to 
discontinue  their  services  because  their  salaries 
were  not  paid,  far  from  being  favorably 
received  by  public  officials,  is  classified  as 
rebellion  and  as  vicious  behavior.  At  the 
same  time  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
denies  to  teachers  the  right  to  feed  themselves 
and  to  live,  a  right  which  can  be  denied  to  no 
human  being,  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior 
feels  no  scruples  against  condemning  the 
teachers  to  perish  from  starvation,  because 
"the  Federal  Government  was  obliged  to 
adopt  the  resolution  recommended  by  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  as  a  result  of  the 
increase  in  the  salaries  of  the  army."  And 
the  teachers  not  only  fail  to  receive  salaries, 
but  are  even  threatened  with  criminal  prosecu- 
tion for  leaving  their  posts. 

From   the   Federal   budget  of   203,000,000 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      95 

pesos*  for  the  year  1919,  deducting  25  per 
cent,  discount  made  by  the  Government  in 
salaries,  we  can  calculate  an  actual  expenditure 
of  not  more  than  190,000,000  pesos,  of  which 
the  amount  of  134,000,000  pesos  was  devoted 
to  the  support  of  the  army,  to  the  support  of  a 
caste  armed,  voracious,  insatiable  and  oppres- 
sive. And  on  the  other  hand,  there  cannot 
be  spared  annually  3,500,000  pesos  for  the 
maintenance  of  all  the  government  schools 
in  the  Federal  District. 

*The  MexicftD  peso  is  equivalent  to  about  60c.  in  U.  S.  money. 


CHAPTER  IX 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  communal 
property  has  been  the  first  legal  form  of  land 
occupation  when  people  have  abandoned 
nomadic  life  to  establish  themselves  in  settle- 
ments. It  is  also  well  known  that  family 
property  marks  the  second  stage  of  this 
social  institution.  And,  finally,  no  one  is 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  in  a  higher  state  of 
evolution,  family  property  has  become  in- 
dividual property,  and  thus  the  latter  is 
sanctioned   by  all  modern  peoples. 

This  transformation  of  landed  property 
has  not  been  a  casual  phenomenon.  It  is  the 
inevitable  result  of  the  law  of  the  economy  of 
forces  which  governs  super-human  organisms 
as  well  as  man  and  sub-human  organisms. 

Collective  property  stifles  individual  in- 
itiative, individual  interest,  individual  in- 
telligence; in  one  word,  all  of  the  motive 
forces  which  contribute  to  improved  pro- 
duction. For  example,  in  recent  times  we 
can  cite  those  corporations  endowed  with 
entailed  properties  which  strangle  wealth 
by  mortmain. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      97 

Individual  property  offers  to  the  owner, 
the  benefits  which  may  result  from  his 
activity,  intelligence  and  economy,  and  for 
that  reason  is  the  form  most  appropriate  for 
stimulating  the  constant  improvement  of 
the  land,  its  economic  exploitation,  and  the 
increase  of  its  produce.  The  result  is  not 
only  beneficial  to  the  proprietor  but  to  the 
community  as  well. 

The  constituents  of  1857,  firm  believers  in 
individual  property,  recognized  it,  providing 
in  article  27  that  "private  property  cannot 
be  expropriated  without  the  consent  of  the 
individual. 

Individual  property  is,  nevertheless,  a  social 
institution;  it  is  recognized  not  only  be- 
cause it  is  beneficial  to  individuals,  but  also 
because  it  is  convenient  and  advantageous  to 
society.  Consequently,  if  society  needs  spe- 
cifically certain  property  of  pubUc  utility, 
it  ought  to  have  the  right  to  take  possession 
of  it;  otherwise,  the  interest  of  the  individual 
would  be  above  the  interest  of  the  community, 
and  the  right  of  the  individual  would  sur- 
mount the  right  of  the  community. 

The  fundamental  task  is  to  find  the  equation 
which  will  limit  to  strict  necessity  the  right 
of    society    to    take    possession    of    private 


98      Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Rsgime 

property  without  impairing  the  right  of  the 
individual  more  than  is  strictly  necessary. 

The  Constitution  of  1857  admirably  solved 
this  problem,  subjecting  expropriation  to  three 
conditions:  the  need  of  the  property  for 
public  utility,  the  indemnification  of  the 
owner,  and  the  payment  in  advance  of  said 
indemnity. 

Public  utility  is  the  only  valid  reason  for 
setting  aside  private  utility;  it  is  the  only 
valid  reason  for  converting  private  property 
into  social  property. 

The  legislative  body,  proceeding  from  an 
election,  which  represents  all  social  classes 
and  interests,  and  which  has  charge  of  defining 
these,  is  the  body  authorized  to  determine 
the  public  utilities.  According  to  the  Consti- 
tution of  1857,  therefore,  it  belongs  to  the 
law,  that  is,  to  the  legislative  power,  to  deter- 
mine the  necessary  requisites  for  expropriation 
among  which  is  included  the  cause  of  public 
utility.  The  intervention  of  the  legislative 
power  in  a  really  democratic  organization 
removes  the  fear  that  expropriation  may 
only  serve  as  a  pretext  for  a  single  man  or 
a  small  group  of  men  to  despoil  private 
citizens  whether  impelled  by  covetousness  or 
unsound  personal  passions. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime      99 

Naturally,  from  the  moment  when  the 
democratic  principles  of  a  Constitution  begin 
to  degenerate,  and  by  the  granting  of  extra- 
ordinary powers  the  fundamental  prerogative 
of  law-making  passes  from  the  Legislative 
body  to  the  Executive,  the  essential  guarantee 
to  private  property  disappears  and  in  its 
place  appears  the  first  danger. 

The  second  requisite  is  relative  to  the 
indemnity.  In  case  of  expropriation,  society 
has  an  interest  in  taking  possession  of  a 
specific  property  in  order  to  convert  it,  also 
specifically,  into  an  object  of  public  utility. 
If  there  were  any  other  way  of  obtaining  the 
same  service,  there  would  be  no  necessity  for 
expropriation.  But,  although  the  State  has 
the  right  to  take  possession  specifically  of 
property,  and  to  deprive  the  owner  of  its  use 
and  disposition  because  social  interest  demands 
it,  this  same  social  interest  demands  that  the 
proprietor  be  indemnified.  Only  on  that 
condition  can  man  feel  that  his  property  is 
his  own  and  have  an  inducement  for  improv- 
ing its  condition  and  productivity.  From 
these  facts,  we  deduce  that  indemnity  must 
be  real,  effective  and  correspond  to  the 
commercial  value  of  the  property  expropriated. 
If  less  is  paid,  the  proprietor  is  not  only  dis- 


100    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

possessed  of  his  property,  but  he  is  also 
unjustly  despoiled  of  a  part  of  his  patriraony. 

The  man  whose  property  is  expropriated, 
is  not  fully  indemnified  merely  by  having 
its  value  put  to  his  credit,  but  it  should  be 
paid  for  in  cash,  before  he  is  deprived  of  its 
possession.  In  that  way  there  will  never  be 
plunder.  Moreover,  as  long  as  society  is 
obliged  to  pay  the  owner  the  real  value  of  the 
property  prior  to  its  occupation,  the  power  of 
expropriation  will  always  be  limited  by  the 
financial  resources  of  the  State,  and  this 
restraint  will  prevent  abuse;  but  from  the 
moment  public  authority  is  authorized  to 
expropriate  without  previously  paying  the 
indemnity,  there  is  no  possible  limit  either 
to  the  determination  of  public  utilities  or  to 
the  consequent  expropriations;  in  exchange 
for  real  property  of  great  cash  value,  the 
State  will  contract  obligations  or  will  issue 
bonds  which  will  depreciate  the  more  the 
greater  they  are  in  amount.  And  the  same 
thing  will  happen  with  expropriation  that 
happens  with  inflated  issues  of  paper  money 
which,  at  bottom,  are  nothing  more  than 
plunder. 

The  Constitution  of  1857  prescribed  the 
aforementioned  restraints  against  the  abuse  of 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    101 

expropriation  for  it  required  the  intervention 
of  the  legislators  in  the  determination  of  the 
public  utility;  it  indemnified  the  owner  with 
the  payment  in  cash  of  the  real  value  of  the 
property  expropriated,  and,  finally,  it  exacted 
that  the  payment  of  the  said  indemnity  should 
be  in  advance.  Subsidiary  laws  demanded 
the  appraisement  by  experts  to  determine 
the  value  in  case  of  disagreement  in  the  price, 
and  went  so  far  as  to  refuse  to  authorize  even 
temporary  occupation,  unless  the  approximate 
value  of  the  property  had  been  previously 
deposited. 

The  Constitution  of  Queretaro  contains  no 
effective  limitation  to  the  right  of  expro- 
priation other  than  to  state  that  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  legislative  power  to  determine  the  cases 
where  the  occupation  of  private  property  is  of 
public  utility;  but  a  very  elastic  law  for  the 
determination  of  those  cases  will  suflSce. 
Of  this,  we  already  have  concrete  examples 
in  various  States  of  the  Republic  where 
the  Executive  power,  whether  Federal  or 
local,  exerts  the  most  stupendous  discretionary 
power  over  private  property. 

In  fact,  as  concerns  indemnity,  the  para- 
graph immediately  following  part  VII  of 
Article  27  of  the  Constitution  of  Queretaro 


102    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

states  that  "the  price  that  shall  be  fixed  as 
indemnity  for  property  expropriated  shall  be 
based  on  the  amount  recorded  as  its  fiscal 
value  in  the  assessor's  office,  whether  this 
value  has  been  declared  by  the  proprietor 
or  simply  accepted  tacitly  by  his  having 
paid  the  taxes  on  this  basis.  This  amount 
shall  be  increased  10  per  cent." 

If  there  existed  in  the  Mexican  Republic  a 
fiscal  appraisement  scientifically  and  system- 
atically verified;  if  this  fiscal  appraisement 
showed  with  real  exactness  the  value  of  each 
and  every  piece  of  real  property,  taking  into 
account  its  location,  its  use,  the  composition 
of  its  soil,  and  other  particulars,  the  rational 
and  equitable  basis  for  the  expropriation  of 
landed  property  would  be  the  assessor's 
appraisement.  But  there  is  no  fiscal  census 
in  the  Mexican  Republic;  taxation  there 
has  been  based  traditionally  upon  the  declara- 
tion made  by  the  owner,  especially  in  the  case 
of  agricultural  lands;  those  declarations  have 
never  given  the  genuine  value  of  the  property 
simply  because  the  proprietor  who  declared 
truthfully  would  have  been  sacrified  to  the 
rest.  The  men  who  drew  up  the  Constitution 
of  1917  could  not  be  ignorant  of  these  facts 
if  they  knew  anything  at  all,  but  in  spite  of 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    103 

this,  they  fixed  as  a  basis  for  indemnification 
in  case  of  expropriation,  the  value  declared  for 
taxes  or  accepted  for  that  purpose;  that  is, 
25  per  cent  or  at  most  30  per  cent  of  the  real 
value,  commercial  or  for  exchange.  The 
Assembly  of  Queretaro  proclaimed,  therefore, 
as  one  of  the  constitutional  canons  of  the 
nation  the  systematic  plunder  of  individuals 
under   the   semblance  of  expropriation. 

Just  as  dangerous,  and  perhaps  more  so,  is 
the  unlimited  power  with  which  the  State 
has  been  vested  in  the  matter  of  expropriation, 
by  the  simple  fact  that  the  indemnity  need 
not,  according  to  the  second  paragraph  of 
Article  27,  be  paid  in  advance.  The  State 
can  expropriate  today  and  pay  in  twenty  years. 
Is  this  expropriation  or  spoliation  .^^ 

It  would  be  inexpedient,  absurd,  and  even 
preposterous  to  re-establish  communal  owner- 
ship of  land,  as  there  is  no  doubt  it  would 
mean  a  return  to  the  stagnation  which 
characterized  the  mortmain;  but  it  at  least 
could  be  argued  that  by  depriving  individuals 
of  their  property,  rightly  or  wrongly,  the 
community  could  use  it  for  the  benefit  of  all. 

The  system  adopted  by  the  new  constitu- 
tion is  worse,  far  worse,  than  the  long-since 
extinct  communal  system.     On  the  one  hand 


104    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

it  recognizes  the  existence  of  private  property, 
thereby  faihng  to  place  all  property,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  at  the  service  of  the  community; 
and  on  the  other  hand,  all  lands  are  virtually 
considered  liable  to  seizure  by  the  community. 
In  this  way,  their  value  is  reduced,  the  oppor- 
tunities for  their  division  and  subdivision  are 
removed,  the  investment  of  capital  for  their 
improvement,  which  is  an  indispensable  con- 
dition by  which  they  can  be  parcelled  out,  is 
prevented,  and  agriculture  remains  stationary. 
When  the  fondest  hope  in  case  of  expropria- 
tion consists  in  receiving  in  worthless  paper 
money  nominally  25  per  cent  or  30  per  cent 
of  the  real  value  of  the  property,  it  is  humanly 
impossible  to  expect  the  owner  to  stake  work  or 
money  on  the  land. 

Therefore,  the  system  of  landed  property 
under  the  Constitution  of  Queretaro  is  not 
properly  individualistic,  since  it  offers  no  real 
guarantee  to  the  individual  owner;  neither  is 
it  communal,  since  it  does  not  place  property 
at  the  direct  service  of  the  community. 

It  is  simply  and  solely  a  system  of  establish- 
ed spoliation,  for  it  upholds,  under  the  guise 
of  a  constitutional  system,  the  program  of 
seizure  of  property  and  robberies  which  the 
"armed  citizens"  carried  through  during  the 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    105 

period  of  revolution.  And  the  "armed  citi- 
zens"— who  are  today  called  public  officials — 
have  admirably  interpreted  the  spirit  of  their 
constitution. 

Alvaro  Obregon,  who  knows  his  colleagues 
well  and  intimately,  says  that  the  leaders  of 
the  Revolution,  "very  especially  those  of 
the  highest  ranks,"  have  diverged  from  the 
road  of  high  principles  "to  follow  that  which 
leads  to  wealth  and  power,  taking  advantage 
of  the  prestige  gained  by  combined  effort, 
to  acquire  fortunes  and  commit  excesses/' 
and  "many  of  the  men  of  high  rank,  both 
military  and  civil,  have  completely  deadened 
the  aims  of  the  revolutionary  movement" 
(I  would  say,  had  literally  followed  the 
purposes  of  the  Carrancista  movement)  "de- 
voting all  their  activities  to  acquiring 
fortunes.  "* 


*See  also  the  following  statement*  taken  from  an  interview  given  *o  "The 
Time*,"  of  Los  Angeles,  by  P.  Elias  Calles,  on  April  36,  1920: 

''Daring  my  short  stay  as  a  member  of  the  Carrancista  Cabinet  I  had  the 
best  opportnnity  to  persuade  myself  of  the  immorality  of  government  prO' 
ceedings  and  how  a  corrupt  coterie  labors  with  such  an  unscrupulous  man, 
headed  by  his  chief  of  staff,  Gen.  Juan  Barragan. 

"Right  there  in  the  chief  of  staff's  office,  everything  is  a  matter  of  specula- 
tion. They  sell  government  positions  and  concessions  of  all  kinds  and  robberies 
of  the  public  funds  are  authorized;  they  speculate  with  the  bonds  of  officers 
and  chiefs  of  the  army  and  even  with  the  pensions  of  widows  and  orphans  of 
soldiers  of  the  revolution  which  are  subject  to  a  charge  of  a  commission  by  the 
authorized  Barragan." 


CHAPTER  X 

At  the  end  of  the  year  1916,  the  civil 
elements  of  the  Carrancista  faction,  few  and 
of  little  importance,  had  clustered  around 
the  only  two  centers  of  material  force,  the 
political,  which  was  personified  in  Carranza, 
and  the  military,  which  at  that  time  was 
controlled  by  ten  or  twelve  generals  of  the 
powerful  caste  of  "armed  citizens." 

Those  who  placed  themselves  under  the 
protection  of  Carranza  declared  themselves 
opposed  to  militarism ;  but  their  real  intention 
was  to  have  Carranza  gain  the  Presidency 
of  the  Republic,  first  having  strengthened 
and  increased  the  prerogatives  of  the  Presi- 
dent, because  upon  the  political  strength  of 
their  protector  depended  the  success  of  their 
personal  ambitions. 

Such  were  the  civil  constituents  that  helped 
Carranza  frame  the  Constitution,  and,  there- 
fore, it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  in  it 
appear  only  one  or  two  insignificant  inno- 
vations for  social  and  economic  order.  The 
main  object  of   Carranza  and  his  personal 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    107 

friends  was  to  organize  constitutional  tyranny 
so  as  to  assure  the  greatest  amount  of  political 
power.  I  shall  discuss  later  on  that  part  of 
the  Constitution  of  Queretaro  which  increases 
the  co-legislative  prerogatives  of  the  President 
of  the  Republic,  which  invests  him  with 
judicial  powers,  and  which  finally  makes 
him  immune  even  in  the  most  serious  cases  of 
violation  of  the  Constitution. 

As  to  the  armed  caste  and  their  civilian 
followers,  little  did  they  care  about  political 
power  so  long  as  they  controlled  the  military 
force  as  if  it  were  their  private  property. 
After  having  dedicated  themselves  during  the 
revolutionary  campaign  to  the  work  of  plun- 
der, devastation  and  seizure  of  property, 
what  they  sought  was  to  organize  those 
transgressions  under  constitutional  law. 

This  explains  why  the  so-called  Liberal 
Constitutionalist  Party,  which  was  nothing 
more  than  the  staff  of  the  caste  of  "armed 
citizens"  initiated  and  supported  in  the 
Congress  of  Queretaro  the  most  radical  meas- 
ures against  economic  liberty,  particularly 
against  property,  for  their  object  in  socializing 
property  and  labor  was  to  place  all  the 
resources  of  the  country  under  the  control 
of  their  caste. 


108    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

If  the  motives  of  these  two  groups  of  the 
Congress  of  Queretaro  had  been  altruistic, 
neither  the  extremes  of  absolutism  proposed 
in  the  political  system  by  the  First  Chief  nor 
the  extremes  of  plunder  and  arbitrariness 
formulated  in  the  economic  social  system  by 
the  neo-military  caste  would  have  been  reach- 
ed. One  group  would  have  served  as  a  check 
on  the  other.  But  the  Congress  was,  for 
the  greater  part,  composed  of  men  who  had 
lost  caste,  and  the  temperament  of  its  members 
is  summed  up  in  the  following  words  of 
Congressman  Manjarrez:  "I  think  the  Com- 
mittee should  accept  the  motion  of  Mr. 
Lizardi  with  all  the  more  reason  because  the 
radical  spirit  of  the  Assembly,  which  applauds 
the  suggestions  of  the  Committee,  knows  how 
to  add  to  radicalism,  but  not  how  to  subtract 
from  it.  Those  things  which  are  to  be  added 
are  accepted,  but  not  those  to  be  subtracted." 
(Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  II,  p.  796). 

Thus  it  happened  that  the  personal  pro- 
tegees of  Carranza  who  formed  a  part  of  the 
Congress  of  Queretaro  allowed  the  most 
illegal  measures  against  economic  liberty  and 
property  to  be  passed,  so  long  as  they  ob- 
tained political  changes  in  favor  of  the 
Executive,   and   the   armed   Soviets   did   not 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    109 

object  to  these  political  changes  so  long  as 
they  assured  success  to  their  measure  for 
spoliation. 

Congressman  Rouaix,  in  union  with  others, 
presented  in  the  session  of  January  25th,  1917, 
an  amendment  to  Article  27,  part  X,  which 
declared  in  favor  of  the  direct  control  by 
the  nation  of  petroleum,  solid,  liquid  and 
gaseous  hydrocarbons,  and  other  products 
of  the  soil  or  sub-soil.  "The  right  of  owner- 
ship thus  conceived,"  says  the  amendment, 
**is  notably  progressive  and  allows  the  Nation 
to  retain  under  its  dominion  everything  neces- 
sary for  social  development,  such  as  mines, 
petroleum  deposits,  etc.,  granting  to  individu- 
als on  that  property  nothing  but  the  beneficial 
interests  authorized  by  the  respective  laws. 
The  first  part  of  the  text  which  we  present 
for  Article  27  gives  a  clear  idea  of  what  we 
propose  and  parts  X  and  XI  express  very 
precisely  the  nature  of  the  rights  reserved." 
(Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  II,  Ap.,  p.  XXX). 

Little  urging  did  the  reporting  Committee 
need  to  adopt  this  veiled  transgression,  for 
in  the  session  of  the  29th  of  January  it  pre- 
sented a  new  draft  of  Article  27  substantially 
incorporating  into  it  the  ideas  of  the  above- 
mentioned  amendment.     As  to  the  socializa- 


110    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

tion  of  the  petroleum,  hydrocarbons,  combusti- 
ble minerals,  and  other  substances  of  the  soil 
and  sub-soil,  the  Committee  did  not  believe 
it  necessary  to  incorporate  the  radical  reform 
proposed,  limiting  itself  to  stating  the  follow- 
ing: "It  is  a  principle  admitted  without 
contradiction  that  the  eminent  domain  of 
Mexican  lands  belongs  primarily  to  the  Nation. 
That  what  constitutes  and  has  constituted 
private  property  is  the  right  which  the  Nation 
has  ceded  to  individuals,  the  granting  of 
which  cannot  include  the  right  to  the  product  of 
the  sub-soil,"  (Why? — it  is  not  said)  "nor 
to  the  waters  as  routes  of  communication. 
In  practice,  great  difficulties  are  encountered 
in  trying  to  specify  the  natural  resources 
which  are  eliminated  from  private  property: 
the  Committee  considers  acceptable  on  this 
point  the  ideas  expounded  by  Congressman 
Rouaix".  (Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  II, 
p.    772). 

In  consequence,  the  Committee  proposed 
the  following  measures  as  part  of  Article  27: 

"The  direct  domain  over  all  minerals  or 
substances  which  form  deposits  in  veins, 
strata,  lumps,  or  beds,  the  nature  of  which  is 
distinct  from  the  component  parts  of  the  soil, 
belongs  to  the  Nation.    Such  are:  minerals 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    111 

from  which  are  extracted  metals  and  metalloids 
utilized  in  industry;  deposits  of  precious 
stones,  rock-salt,  and  the  salt-pans  formed 
directly  by  sea-water;  products  derived  from 
the  decomposition  of  rocks  when  their  ex- 
traction involves  subterranean  works,  phos- 
phates fit  for  utilization  as  fertilizers;  com- 
bustible solid  minerals;  petroleum,  and  all 
the  carbonates  of  hydrogen — solid,  liquid,  or 
gaseous. 

"In  the  cases  referred  to  in  the  two  pre- 
ceding paragraphs,  the  domain  of  the  Nation 
is  inalienable  and  imprescriptible  and  con- 
cessions can  be  made  by  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment only  to  individuals  or  to  civil  or  commer- 
cial companies  formed  in  accordance  with  the 
laws  of  Mexico  on  condition  that  regular  works 
for  the  exploitation  of  the  referred-to  ele- 
ments be  established  and  the  requisites  pro- 
vided by  law  be  complied  with." 

From  a  legal  standpoint,  the  question  which 
related  to  the  products  derived  from  the 
decomposition  of  rocks,  phosphates,  com- 
bustible minerals,  solid,  liquid  or  gaseous, 
including  coal,  petroleum,  and  hydrocarbon- 
ates,  was  simple.  Not  only  the  eminent 
domain,  but  also  the  civil,  of  all  the  national 
lands  had  belonged  originally  to  the  Crown 


112    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

of  Spain,  and  from  it  had  passed,  by  virtue 
of  the  independence  of  New  Spain,  to  the 
Mexican  Nation.  Therefore,  when  the  direct 
ownership  of  the  soil  or  the  sub-soil  of  said 
lands  was  transferred  to  private  individuals 
by  grace,  sale  or  special  concession  from  the 
Crown  or  from  the  independent  government 
of  Mexico,  or,  by  general  provision  of  the  law, 
that  soil  or  subsoil  was  converted  into  private 
property,  the  Government  could  no  longer 
claim  civil  domain,  direct  or  indirect,  over  it, 
excepting  only  that  domain  which  is  known 
as  sovereignty. 

To  refuse  to  recognize  private  property 
which  by  an  act  of  the  Crown  or  the  national 
government  had  passed  from  civil  ownership 
by  the  State  was  nothing  more  than  unquali- 
fied spoliation. 

Now  then,  such  was  the  case  with  coal, 
petroleum,  carbonates  of  hydrogen  and  other 
Substances  of  the  soil  and  sub-soil.  The 
Nation,  owner  of  these  riches,  had  renounced 
them  and  converted  them  into  private  property 
by  an  act  of  its  sovereign  will. 

The  law  of  the  22nd  of  November,  1884, 
declared  in  its  Article  10  that  salts,  petroleum, 
gaseous  springs,  and  springs  of  thermal  or 
medicinal  waters,  were  the  property  of  the 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    US 

owner  of  the  surface.  From  that  time,  there- 
fore, the  State  ceased  to  be  the  owner  of  those 
substances  and  only  under  claim  of  expropria- 
tion and  with  the  corresponding  indemnity, 
could  it  have  regained  them  from  their  new 
owners. 

The  law  of  June  4th,  1892,  definitely  de- 
clared, in  its  4th  article,  that  the  owner  of 
the  surface  could  exploit  freely,  without 
necessity  of  concession,  combustibles,  oils, 
and  mineral  waters. 

Finally,  the  law  of  November  25th,  1909, 
stated  in  its  Article  2: 

**The  following  are  the  exclusive  property 
of  the  owner  of  the  soil: 

"I.  Seams  or  deposits  of  combustible  min- 
erals in  all  their  forms  and  varieties. 

"II.  Seams  or  deposits  of  bituminous 
substances. 

'*III.  Seams  or  deposits  of  salts  which 
come  to  the  surface. 

"IV.  Superficial  and  subterranean  waters 
subject  only  to  what  may  be  regulated  by 
public  rights  and  the  special  laws  relating  to 
water  without  detriment  to  the  provision  of 
Article   9. 

"V.  Rocks  and  other  materials  in  the 
soil  such  as  slate,  porphyry,  basalts,  and 
calcium  carbonate,  earth,  sand,  and  clay. 


il4    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

"VI.  Marsh  and  alluvial  iron,  alluvial 
tin,  and  ochres." 

Trusting  to  these  legal  precepts,  extensive 
enterprises  for  the  exploration  of  the  carbonif- 
erous and  petroleum  zones  of  the  country  had 
been  launched  prior  to  1917;  immense  sums 
of  money  had  been  invested  in  those  enter- 
prises, in  the  drilling  of  wells,  the  construction 
of  buildings,  the  installation  of  machinery, 
pumping  stations,  oil  ducts,  wharves,  and 
other  accessories,  the  investments  being  esti- 
mated at  something  more  than  two  hundred 
millions  of  dollars;  the  greater  part  of  which 
was  American,  English,  French  and  Dutch 
capital.  In  some  instances,  the  surface  of 
the  land  had  been  acquired  in  ownership; 
in  other  instances,  contracts  for  the  leasing  or 
exploitation  of  the  sub-soil  had  been  closed, 
and  the  owners  of  the  surface  had  been 
receiving  incomes  of  varying  amounts  from 
rentals  or  royalties. 

The  proposed  draft  of  Article  27  meant, 
consequently,  not  only  an  illegal  spoliation  of 
the  individual  owners  of  the  lands,  and  for 
the  same  reason  of  the  combustible  wealth  of 
the  sub -soil  according  to  the  laws  previously 
passed,  but  also  a  spoliation  of  the  exploitation 
rights   acquired   by   the  concerns  operating. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    115 

The  draft  was,  in  addition,  of  an  eminently 
retroactive  nature  unless  its  application  were 
to  be  restricted  exclusively  to  those  lands, 
such  as  waste  and  national  lands,  the  control 
of  which  had  not  as  yet  been  transmitted  to 
individuals  by  the  State,  or  public  property  or 
property  of  common  use  over  which  the  State 
had  not  ceased  to  exercise  direct  ownership. 

And  the  proposed  amendment  was  not  only 
despoiling  and  retroactive,  but  it  was  also 
absolutely  anti-economic,  because  the  country, 
impoverished  by  the  revolution,  needed  the 
inflow  of  foreign  capital,  whereas  the  threat  of 
socialization  could  have  no  other  effect  than 
to  drive  away  new  investments. 

Finally,  the  amendment  was  most  dangerous 
to  the  stability  of  national  sovereignty  be- 
cause, as  affecting  foreign  interests  and  rights 
in  an  in  justifiable  way,  it  must  surely  bring 
remonstrances  from  the  respective  govern- 
ments. 

Nothing,  however,  deterred  the  so-called 
Constituents  of  Queretaro.  Paragraph  4  of 
the  proposed  new  Article  27,  in  which  was 
sanctioned  the  socialization  of  petroleum, 
coal,  hydrocarbons,  and  other  substances  of 
the  soil  or  sub-soil,  was  not  even  lightly 
discussed.     Upon   being   read  once^   the  rules 


116    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

permitting  debate  were  suspended  and  it  was 
unanimously  approved.  (Diario  de  los  De- 
bates, Vol.  II,  pp.  786,  819).  Furthermore, 
during  the  sessions  of  the  29th  and  30th  at 
which  Article  27  was  voted  upon,  not  a  few 
of  the  Congressmen  fell  asleep.  "The  Chair- 
man," said  the  Secretary  of  the  Congress, 
"begs  the  Congressmen  to  keep  awake,  for  from 
the  very  moment  that  they  voted  to  continue 
the  permanent  session,  they  assumed  the 
responsiblity  of  voting  upon  this  law;  as  some 
of  the  Congressmen  are  asleep,  no  one  knows 
how  they  can  consciously  give  their  votes." 
(Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  II,  p.  807). 

Only  over  paragraph  6  of  Article  27  relative 
to  the  conditions  by  which  the  State  should 
agree  upon  the  concession  for  utilizing  the 
riches  of  the  sub-soil  and  the  other  riches 
socialized  under  paragraphs  four  and  five 
was  there  some  discussion.  But  that  debate 
was  not  because  any  one  opposed  the  plunder, 
but  because  Congressman  Ibarra  claimed 
that  the  amount  of  royalty  which  the  govern- 
ment w^as  to  ask  from  the  grantees  as  compen- 
sation for  the  right  of  exploitation  should  be 
determined  immediately.  If  this  amount  was 
not  determined  upon  finally,  it  was  because 
Congressman  Rouaix,   the  instigator  of  the 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    117 

project  and  Chairman  of  the  Reporting  Com- 
mittee, declared  this  to  be  matter  for  sub- 
sidiary legislation. 

"  .  .  .  I  believe,"  said  Rouaix,  "that  it  is 
more  expedient  for  the  Nation  to  fix  directly 
what  may  seem  most  profitable.  At  present, 
mines  pay  a  certain  per  cent  for  exportation, 
and  the  Nation  is  authorized  to  charge  up 
to  one  and  one-half  per  cent;  I  do  not  think 
it  would  be  convenient  to  fix  right  now  the 
sum  that  should  be  paid  to  the  Nation,  but 
believe  rather  that  the  case  should  be  studied 
thoroughly;  then,  with  completeness  of  data, 
it  could  be  determined  what  sum  should  be 
paid  and  whether  taxes  should  be  on  the  profits 
or  only  on  the  property."  (Diario  de  los 
Debates,  Vol.  II,  pp.  786-7). 

"The  Committee,"  adds  its  Chairman, 
Congressman  Colunga,  "does  not  deem  it 
necessary  to  make  a  constitutional  precept 
of  the  addition  proposed  by  Congressman 
Ibarra,  because  it  considers  it  entirely  a 
subsidiary  question.  Moreover,  the  matter 
deserves  discussion  and  cannot  be  lightly 
passed  upon;  besides,  the  mining  law  must  be 
drawn  up  by  the  Congress  of  the  Union;  it  is 
in  that  law  that  Congressman  Ibarra's  idea 
can  preferably  be  incorporated  without  the 


118    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

necessity  of  making  it  a  constitutional  pre- 
cept." 

In  other  words,  the  essential  question, 
that  concerning  the  exploitation  of  the  owners 
of  petroleum  and  coal  and  the  retroactivity 
of  the  provision  by  which  those  owners  were 
despoiled,  could  be  lightly  passed  upon  without 
meriting  discussion  in  the  Assembly  of  Quere- 
taro. 

The  sentiment,  essentially  Bolshevik  and 
Jingoish,  which  prevailed  in  that  Assembly, 
is  perfectly  summed  up  in  the  following  words 
of  Deputy  Jara:  "I  believe  that  the  Com- 
mittee is  now  in  the  right,  it  has  played  its 
part,  it  has  attempted  to  defend  the  father- 
land, and,  finally,  it  has  tried  to  secure  the 
Mexican  property -holder  against  the  plunder 
to  which  he  has  been  a  victim  in  former  years. 
The  petroleum  regions  are  very  much  coveted ; 
many  measures,  many  evil  practices,  many 
influences,  are  brought  to  bear  so  that  owner- 
ship of  these  lands  may  be  acquired;  we  have 
observed  that  a  good  part  of  the  cantons  of 
Tuxpam  and  Minatitlan  have  passed  with 
extraordinary  rapidity  into  the  hands  of 
foreigners,  the  natives  receiving  a  ridiculously 
low  amount.  This  property  has  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  foreigners  under  atrocious 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    119 

and  fatal  conditions,  to  such  an  extent  that 
any  foreigner  who  has  a  small  property  for 
which  he  has  paid  a  few  dollars  feels  that, 
when  his  sovereign  will  is  not  done,  he  has 
the  right  to  obtain  foreign  force  to  secure 
recognition  for  his  rights  of  ownership  ac- 
quired by  a  truly  ridiculous  amount  of 
money.  (Applause)."  (Diario  de  los  De- 
bates, Vol.  II,  p.  789).  And  further  on  the 
same  Jara  adds:  "Now  is  the  time  to  take 
radical  measures  to  correct  these  evils,  now 
is  the  time  for  us  to  dictate  solid  and  wise 
bases  for  action  in  the  future,  and  to  assure 
a  bright  prospect  for  the  country,  we  should 
not  be  deterred  by  scruples,  but,  rather,  we 
should  go  forward.  If  we  are  to  have  inter- 
national diflSculties  because  some  chapters  of 
the  Constitution  are  distasteful  to  foreigners, 
we  shall  not  escape  these  diflSculties  by 
omitting  some  chapters,  nor  will  the  difficul- 
ties be  increased  if  we  add  another  chapter; 
rest  assured  that  if  through  perfidy  or  through 
eagerness  for  expansion,  they  wish  to  oppose 
the  carrying  out  of  this  proposition,  with  our 
Constitution  or  without  it,  this  country  will 
come  to  war;  therefore,  let  us  not  be  deterred; 
let  us  as  Mexicans  perform  our  duty,  and  on 
signing  our  Constitution,  let  us  fix  our  eyes 


120    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

only  on  our  own  tri-colored  flag  and  not  have 
before  us  that  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes. 
(Applause)."  (Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  II, 
p.791). 

Much  to  our  sorrow,  we  know  the  result  of 
this  Constitutional  amendment;  instead  of 
asserting  the  dignity  and  sovereignty  of 
Mexico,  it  has  brought  the  country  to  the 
brink  of  international  conflicts;  instead  of 
assuring  its  prosperity,  it  has  diminished,  in 
fact,  almost  annihilated,  its  power  for  drawing 
foreign  capital. 

Weighed  down  by  economic  penury,  harass- 
ed by  the  diplomatic  protests  of  the  American, 
English,  and  French  Governments  in  their 
notes  of  April  2nd,  June  29th,  April  30th,  and 
May  13th,  1918,  respectively,  the  Carrancista 
Government  has  done  nothing  but  commit 
errors  in  the  petroleum  matter. 

It  issued  its  decree  on  the  19th  of  February, 
1918,  modified  it  on  the  18th  of  the  following 
May,  changed  it  again  on  the  8th  of  July, 
and  the  8th  of  August  of  the  same  year;  issued 
the  decrees  of  July  31st  and  August  12th  and, 
finally,  in  December  of  last  year  submitted 
to  Congress  for  approval  a  proposed  by-law 
to  Article  27  without  satisfying  the  foreign 
governments  whose  attitude  is  that  the  right 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    121 

of  ownership  of  the  sub-soil  which  legally 
belongs  to  the  owners  of  the  surface,  be 
respected,  and  that  the  legitimacy  and  irre- 
vocability of  the  contracts  for  lease  and  ex- 
ploitation closed  by  those  same  owners,  be 
likewise  recognized. 

And  the  Carrancista  Government  has  had 
to  bear  a  suspension  of  relations  with  France 
and  England,  the  slight  to  Ambassador  Pani, 
who  was  made  to  wait  four  months  in  the 
antechambers  of  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  the  ex- 
clusion of  Mexico  from  the  League  of  Nations, 
and  the  mendicant  mission  of  Candido  Aguilar, 
son-in-law  of  Carranza  and  confidential  envoy 
to  the  Department  of  State  in  Washington, 
who  went  to  the  American  Capital  to  learn 
under  what  terms  the  proposed  Petroleum 
Law  would  be  acceptable  to  it. 

Such  have  been  the  deplorable  results— and 
we  do  not  as  yet  know  what  extremes  they 
will  yet  reach — of  the  Bolshevik  and  Jingoish 
spirit  of  the  so-called  Constituents  of  Quere- 
taro,  well  synthesized  in  the  fourth  and 
sixth  paragraphs  of  the  famous  Article  27 
of  the  Constitution  of  1917. 


CHAPTER  XI 

We  must  now  turn  to  the  analysis  of  the 
provisions  contained  in  Sections  I  and  IV  of 
Article  27  which  introduce  certain  legal  in- 
capabilities for  the  acquisition  of  landed 
property. 

These  sections  read  as  follows: 
*'I.  Only  Mexicans  by  birth  or  naturaliza- 
tion and  Mexican  companies  have  the  right 
to  acquire  ownership  in  lands,  waters  and  their 
appurtenances,  or  to  obtain  concessions  to 
develop  mines,  waters  or  mineral  fuels  in 
the  Republic  of  Mexico.  The  Nation  may 
grant  the  same  right  to  foreigners,  provided 
they  agree  before  the  Department  of  Foreign 
Affairs  to  be  considered  Mexicans  in  respect 
to  such  property,  and  accordingly  not  to  in- 
voke the  protections  of  their  Governments  in 
respect  to  the  same,  under  penalty,  in  case  of 
breach,  of  forfeiture  to  the  Nation  of  property 
so  acquired.  Within  a  zone  of  100  kilometers 
from  the  sea-coast,  no  foreigner  shall  under 
any  conditions  acquire  direct  ownership  of 
lands  and  waters. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    123 

"IV.  Commercial  stock  companies  shall 
not  acquire,  hold  or  administer  rural  proper- 
ties. Companies  of  this  nature  which  may  be 
organized  to  develop  any  manufacturing, 
mining,  petroleum  or  other  industries,  may 
acquire,  hold,  or  administer  lands  only  in  an 
area  absolutely  necessary  for  their  establish- 
ments or  adequate  to  serve  the  purposes  in- 
dicated, which  the  Executive  of  the  Union  or 
of  the  respective  State  in  each  case  shall 
determine. " 

Nobody  can  deny  to  a  Nation  the  right  to 
restrict  either  by  its  constitution  or  by  its 
subsidiary  laws,  the  foreigner's  legal  capacity 
to  acquire  landed  property.  International 
tradition  and  doctrine  as  well  recognize  such 
right. 

It  is  also  indisputable  that  the  Nation  has 
the  right  of  determining  by  either  its  consti- 
tutional or  its  subsidiary  laws  under  what 
conditions  corporations  of  any  kind  may  be 
formed  and  to  what  extent  their  capacity  to 
acquire  or  hold  real  or  personal  property  shall 
be  limited  or  denied  for  the  welfare  of  the 
community. 

The  important  thing  is  to  know  whether 
these  restrictions  redound  to  the  social  welfare 
or  whether  they  place  obstacles  in  its  way. 


124    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

The  restrictions  against  the  acquisition  of 
real  estate  by  foreigners  can  be  upheld  on 
the  ground  of  economic  order.  Such,  for 
example,  is  the  attitude  in  the  State  of 
California  towards  the  Japanese,  whose  com- 
mercial competition  is  considered  detrimental. 

Again,  the  restrictions  may  be  founded 
upon  reasons  having  to  do  with  the  foreign 
policy,  whether  of  reprisal  or  with  a  view  to 
preventing  in  certain  regions  the  formation 
of  foreign  colonies  which  might  easily  give 
rise  to  international  complications.  For  that 
reason  one  of  our  fundamental  policies  for  the 
preservation  of  public  order  has  been  to  pro- 
hibit foreigners  in  general  from  acquiring 
property  in  the  frontier  zones. 

Section  I,  Article  27  which  relates  to  the 
direct  domain  over  lands  and  waters  within  a 
zone  of  100  kms.  along  the  line  of  the  frontier, 
reproduces  the  prohibition  already  established 
by  subsidiary  legislation.  However,  in  the 
new  Constitution  the  prohibition  is  absolute, 
while  our  previous  laws  authorized  the  Ex- 
ecutive Power  to  concede  permits  in  excep- 
tional cases. 

The  section  we  have  been  considering 
furthermore  prohibits  all  foreigners  to  acquire 
lands  or  waters  situated  within  a  zone  fifty 
miles  from  the  sea-coast. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    125 

As  the  Mexican  coasts  have  a  length  of 
8,330  kms.,  the  prohibited  zone  covers  441,500 
square  kilometers,  or  22%  of  the  total  area 
of  the  Republic,  which,  added  to  the  frontier 
zone  of  100  kilometers  also  prohibited,  em- 
braces 40%  of  the  total  area. 

Over  this  enormous  surface  lie  rich  lands 
fit  for  agriculture  and  cattle-raising.  It  con- 
tains also  great  latent  industrial  potentialities, 
for  beneath  it  are  rich  beds  of  mineral  ore, 
coal  and  combustible  liquid. 

The  development  of  all  these  riches  is  of 
the  greatest  importance  to  the  country  and 
whatever  tends  to  thwart  it  retards  the  pro- 
gress and  detrimentally  affects  the  welfare 
of  its  inhabitants. 

Could  it  possibly  be  argued  that  our  exten- 
sive frontier  zone  and  our  still  more  extensive 
sea-coast  zone,  deprived  of  the  benefits  of 
foreign  capital  are  already  being  exploited  or 
are  on  the  road  to  complete  development? 
Or  could  anyone  assert  that  national  capital 
has  already  acquired  the  spirit  of  enterprise, 
or  that  it  is  sufficient  in  amount  to  supplant 
foreign  capital  or  make  the  investment  of  such 
unnecessary.^ 

The  framers  of  Section  I  of  Article  27  did 
not  ask  themselves  these  questions  nor  did 


126    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

they  believe  them  pertinent.  Had  they  sought 
facts,  they  would  have  learned  that  a  great 
portion,  or  rather  the  greater  portion  of  the 
frontier  and  sea-coast  zones  is  wholly  or 
largely  undeveloped  through  lack  of  money; 
they  would  have  ascertained  that  Mexican 
capital  which  only  yesterday  began  to  quicken 
with  a  new  impulse  of  commercial  and  in- 
dustrial life,  today  is  absolutely  idle  as  a  result 
of  the  revolution,  and,  finally,  they  would 
have  realized  that  all  Mexican  capital  com- 
bined is  but  a  drop  in  the  bucket  when  com- 
pared with  the  immense  amount  of  money 
which  our  latent  resources  require  for  their 
development. 

Section  IV,  above  quoted,  of  the  same 
Article  27,  aggravates  still  further  a  situation 
which  in  itself  is  baneful  enough. 

Referring  to  the  provisions  of  the  Constitu- 
tion which  prohibit  all  civil  and  commercial 
enterprises  from  acquiring  ownership  of  rural 
property,  the  First  Chief  says  in  explana- 
tion: "The  need  of  this  change  is  self- 
evident,  for  no  one  is  unaware  that  the 
clergy,  incapable  of  acquiring  landed  property, 
has  mocked  the  prohibition  contained  in  the 
law  by  hiding  behind  stock  companies;  and 
as  these  companies  have  undertaken  the  busi- 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    127 

ness  of  acquiring  extensive  lands  in  the  Mexi- 
can Republic,  it  has  become  necessary  to  place 
a  quick  and  effective  check  upon  this  evil, 
otherwise  it  would  not  take  long  for  our  land 
to  be,  openly  or  under  cover,  in  the  hands  of 
foreigners,''  (Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  I., 
p.  265.) 

Thus  it  was  that  with  the  sole  purpose  of 
preventing  religious  institutions  and  foreigners 
from  evading  the  constitutional  restrictions, 
the  First  Chief  proposed  that  there  should 
be  denied  to  every  kind  of  corporation  or 
company  the  right  to  acquire  rural  lands, 
although  such  denial  could  not  but  put  an  end 
to  all  agricultural  progress. 

It  was  fortunate  that  the  Assembly  of 
Queretaro  confined  this  prohibitive  clause  to 
stock  companies,  and  that  in  spite  of  identity 
of  purpose,  it  did  not  make  it  include  urban 
property,  factories,  foundries  and  industrial 
plants  of  various  kinds. 

In  the  last  years  of  peace  and  tranquility, 
the  formation  of  stock  companies  brought 
about  powerful  help  in  the  way  of  irrigating, 
improving  and  cultivating  lands.  Along  the 
whole  length  of  the  frontiers  and  coasts  and 
in  the  interior  of  the  Republic,  there  are 
scattered   important   enterprises   which   were 


128    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

organized  as  stock  companies  and  which  are 
responsible  for  the  launching  of  prosperous 
agricultural  undertakings  where  formerly  there 
were  only  deserts  or  untilled  lands. 

As  proof  of  this  assertion,  we  can  point  to 
the  cotton  fields  of  Lower  California  and  the 
basin  of  the  Nazas ;  the  sugar-cane  plantations 
on  the  slopes  of  Sinaloa  and  along  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico;  the  coffee  plantations  in  the  tropi- 
cal regions  of  Vera  Cruz,  Oaxaca,  and  Chiapas; 
the  great  saw -mills  turning  out  wood  of  com- 
mon use  in  all  parts  of  the  country  and  those 
milling  rarer  woods  in  the  isthmian  region  and 
the  State  of  Tabasco,  and  many  other  enter- 
prises of  similar  character. 

All  these  are  prohibited  in  the  future ! 

Bolshevik  logic,  Jingoish  logic,  permits  of 
no  debate.  Rather  than  allow  the  Catholic 
Church,  which  recognizes  as  its  head  a  foreign 
Pope,  and  rather  than  allow  men  of  enter- 
prise from  foreign  countries  to  acquire  any 
right  whatsoever  in  Mexican  land,  four-tenths 
of  the  native  soil  must  remain  barren  and 
fifteen  million  Mexicans  must  continue  to  go 
hungry  and  naked. 


CHAPTER  XII 

As  WE  have  pointed  out  in  the  preceding 
chapter.  Section  IV  of  Article  27  of  the 
Constitution  of  1917,  is  one  of  the  most  for- 
midable existing  obstacles  to  the  agricultural 
development  of  Mexico^,  particularly  in  the 
coast  and  frontier  zones. 

However,  the  baneful  eflFects  of  that  section 
go  still  further,  for  they  extend  to  all  enter- 
prises organized  for  manufacturing,  mining, 
the  extraction  of  petroleum  and  similar  in- 
dustries. 

The  First  Chief  orginally  drew  up  this  sec- 
tion in  the  following  terms:  "Ci\'il  and  com- 
mercial companies  may  possess,  within  or 
without  the  limits  of  any  town,  urban  prop- 
erties, factories,  industrial  enterprises,  plants 
for  the  exploitation  of  minerals,  petroleum  or 
any  other  substances  of  the  subsoil,  as  well  as 
railroads  and  pipe-lines;  but  they  cannot 
acquire  or  operate  rural  properties  in  a  larger 
area  than  that  strictly  necessary  for  the 
purposes  above  mentioned,  which  area  shall 
be  fixed  by  the  Executive  in  each  instance." 


130    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

The  text  finally  approved  by  the  Assembly 
of  Queretaro  reads  as  follows:  "IV.  Com- 
mercial stock  companies  shall  not  acquire, 
hold  or  administer  rural  properties.  Com- 
panies of  this  nature  which  may  be  organized 
to  develop  any  manufacturing,  mining,  petro- 
leum or  other  industry,  excepting  only  agri- 
cultural industries,  may  acquire,  hold  or  ad- 
minister lands  only  in  an  area  absolutely 
necessary  for  their  establishments  or  adequate 
to  serve  the  purposes  indicated  which  the 
Executive  of  the  Union  or  of  the  respective 
State  in  each  case  shall  determine. 

The  approved  clause,  therefore,  confines 
only  to  commercial  stock  companies  the  in- 
ability to  acquire  rural  lands  while  the  pro- 
posed clause  included  all  kinds  of  companies, 
civil  as  well  as  commercial.  But,  although 
from  this  point  of  view  the  approved  restric- 
tion is. less  of  an  obstruction  than  that  pro- 
posed to  the  Assembly  by  the  First  Chief,  on 
the  other  hand  it  allows  greater  opportuni- 
ties for  abuse,  since  it  confers  not  only  upon 
the  Executive  of  the  Nation,  but  also  upon 
the  Executives  of  the  States  the  power  to 
limit  the  area  of  the  lands  permitted  to 
be  acquired  for  undertakings  not  of  an  agri- 
cultural nature. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    131 

A  mining  enterprise,  a  foundry,  any  in- 
dustrial plant  whatsoever,  needs  vast  areas  of 
land,  determined  in  accordance  with  the 
nature  or  importance  of  the  business,  for  the 
installation  of  machinery,  the  building  of 
side-tracks,  the  erection  of  warehouses,  office 
buildings,  dwellings  for  the  laborers,  and  other 
requisites. 

And  in  the  case  of  many  mining  enterprises, 
plants  for  working  and  refining  the  ores  must 
also  be  erected  when  transportation  for  such 
purpose  is  impracticable. 

For  other  enterprises,  the  amount  of  land 
required  is  even  less  easily  to  be  determined. 
For  the  extraction  of  petroleum,  for  instance, 
the  construction  of  tanks  erected  at  points 
determined  by  experts  is  necessary  and  rights- 
of-way  for  the  laying  of  pipe-lines  from  the 
wells  to  the  storage  tanks,  and  thence  to 
the  places  of  shipment,  are  first  requirements. 

The  area  allowed  any  of  the  industrial 
plants  mentioned  affects  primarily  the  success 
or  failure  of  the  enterprise  because  the  plant 
must  be  a  harmonious  unit,  and  the  incapa- 
city of  any  one  part  must  necessarily  reduce 
the  working  efficiency  of  the  other  parts. 

It  will  avail  nothing  for  a  mining  concern 
to  uncover  abundant  ore  deposits,  if  it  can- 


132    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

not  hold  enough  land  for  a  refining  plant, 
when  the  quality  of  the  ore  is  poor  and  can- 
not stand  the  cost  of  transportation.  This 
means  that  if  the  enterprise  does  not  possess 
enough  water  on  its  own  land  for  working 
the  metals,  it  is  obliged  to  get  it  somewhere 
else,  even  though  to  do  so  it  must  acquire 
the  water-bearing  lands  and  construct  aque- 
ducts over  one  or  several  properties. 

It  would  be  useless  for  a  petroleum  com- 
pany to  sink  oil  wells  of  great  promise  if  it 
has  not  the  land  necessary  for  storing  the 
product  and  removing  it  from  the  place  where 
it  flows  to  the  railroads  or  steamers  which 
must  carry  it  to  the  markets. 

Nevertheless,  the  constitutional  restriction 
which  we  have  been  considering,  places  all 
these  enterprises  at  the  mercy  of  the  arbitrary 
judgment  of  the  Executive,  whether  of  the 
Nation  or  of  the  States. 

In  other  words,  it  will  not  be  the  organizers 
or  managers  who  will  be  the  judges  of  the  land 
area  necessary  for  the  success  of  the  business, 
but  irresponsible  public  oflScials  in  whom  class 
prejudices,  political  animosities,  or  a  desire 
to  defraud,  will  give  rise  to  grave  errors  and 
injustices. 

Let  the  President  of  the  Republic,  or  the 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    1S3 

Governor  of  a  State,  availing  himself  of  the 
power  which  the  Constitutional  law  gives  him, 
limit  to  less  than  a  required  amount  the  land 
to  be  allowed  an  industrial  plant,  and  failure 
will  inevitably  follow. 

Furthermore,  on  starting  a  business,  not 
only  the  present  is  to  be  taken  into  account- 
such  short-sightedness  would  be  unthinkable 
in  men  of  enterprise  —  but  also,  and  much 
more  seriously,  the  future  with  all  the  pros- 
pects of  development  which  it  holds. 

If  the  Executive,  Federal  or  local,  has  a 
restricted  vision,  he  will  concede  to  this  class 
of  enterprise  only  the  area  of  land  essential 
for  their  actual  needs,  and  will  thus  condemn 
the  business  to  remain  stationary,  when  it  is 
to  the  interest,  not  alone  of  the  capitalists, 
but  of  the  country  as  a  whole,  to  encourage 
constant  progress  and  the  increase  of  produc- 
tive labor. 

Not  a  few  industrial  plants  in  the  Mexican 
Republic  are  installed  in  isolated  places, 
having  no  access  to  public  highways  or  rail- 
roads, and  consequently  are  forced  to  supply, 
of  themselves,  the  daily  wants  of  their  people. 
We  have  numerous  enough  examples  of  in- 
dustrial enterprises  which  have  found  them- 
selves obliged  to  undertake  farming  work  in 


134    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

the  center  of  uncultivated  lands  so  as  to 
provide  their  employees  with  vegetables,  milk 
and  other  perishable  foods.  The  production 
of  these  articles  of  prime  necessity  cannot  be 
left  to  contingencies  dependent  upon  the 
individual  efforts  of  the  occasional  farmer  who 
may  settle  there.  Such  production  is  in- 
dispensable to  the  existence  of  the  community 
built  up  by  an  industry,  and  this  industry 
must  commercially  depend  only  upon  itself 
if  it  does  not  want  to  run  the  risk  of  having 
its  work  abandoned  for  lack  of  articles  needed 
for  the  sustenance  of  its  employees. 

In  the  case  of  these  isolated  industries,  as 
in  those  previously  mentioned,  the  result  often 
is  that  the  enterprises  are  implacably  sacri- 
ficed to  an  oppressive  bureaucracy. 

Experience  has  likewise  shown  that  some 
industries  need  certain  agricultural  products, 
the  cultivation  of  which  is  just  beginning  or 
is  not  known  in  the  country;  such  is  the  case 
with  hops  and  malt  barley,  essential  to  the 
manufacture  of  beer.  If  they  are  not  to 
exist  precariously,  it  is  necessary  for  the  in- 
dustries to  encourage  and  even  to  undertake 
on  their  own  accoimt  those  branches  of  agri- 
culture upon  which  they  are  dependent. 

The  constitutional  law  which  we  have  been 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    135 

considering,  definitely  stands  in  the  way  of 
such  a  solution  of  the  problem. 

The  objections  to  this  law  could  be  multi- 
pled,  but  all  can  be  resolved  into  one  con- 
clusion ;  the  immediate  success,  and  more  than 
that,  the  future  development,  of  industrial 
enterprises  of  any  character,  is  made  de- 
pendent upon  the  arbitrary  judgment  of 
one  irresponsible  public  oflicial,  inasmuch  as 
the  President  of  the  Republic  and  the  Gov- 
ernors of  the  States  —  not  the  managers  of 
the  industry  —  are  empowered  by  the  Con- 
stitution to  measure  and  judge  the  technical 
needs  of  those  enterprises. 

It  is  unthinkable  that  the  productive  capac- 
ity of  a  country  should  be  limited  by  the 
errors,  prejudices  or  passions  of  this  or  that  pub- 
he  official,  and  it  is  likewise  imthinkable  that 
the  development  of  its  potentialities  should 
depend  upon  the  will  of  a  tyrant-in-chief  and 
twenty-eight  sub-tyrants  even  though  we 
suppose  them  incorruptible. 

But  we  must  not  forget  what  these  men  are 
and  have  been;  what  lusts  launched  them  into 
the  revolution;  what  numerous  evidences  of 
voracity  they  have  shown  during  their  tenure 
of  office;  nor  must  we  forget  that  if,  in  every 
public  administration,  there  exist  corruptible 


136    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

elements,  these  are  innumerable  and  un- 
bridled where,  as  in  Mexico,  there  is  not  the 
restraint  of  public  opinion.  A  precept,  there- 
fore, which  places  in  their  hands  the  success 
or  failure  of  immense  capital  invested  in  in- 
dustries cannot  but  be,  as  it  has  been,  an 
irresistible  instrument  of  abuse,  extortion 
and  betrayal. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

In  the  analysis  of  Article  27  of  the  Carran- 
cista  Constitution,  it  remains  for  us  to  con- 
sider the  problem  of  the  distribution  of  land. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  existence  of 
this  problem  nor  of  the  fact  that  its  solution  is 
urgent,  if  there  is  a  desire  to  increase  the 
possibilities  of  agricultural  productivity  and 
stably  improve  the  condition  of  the  rural 
masses.  But  in  order  to  solve  it  properly,  it 
is  necessary  to  examine  its  very  roots  with  the 
impartiality  of  a  scientific  study,  and  not 
attend  merely  to  the  surface.  Solely  in  that 
way  will  the  cause  of  the  evil  be  removed,  and 
more  serious  evils  avoided  than  those  which 
are  to  be  corrected. 

The  unequal  distribution  of  lands  in  the 
Republic  of  Mexico  originates  in  the  form  in 
which  these  lands  were  reduced  to  private 
property  during  the  colonial  period. 

Taking  as  a  basis  the  famous  bull  of  Pope 
Alexander  VI,  which  gave  to  the  Crown  of 
Spain  as  civil  property,  and  at  the  same  time 
gave  it  political  dominion  over  the    territory 


138    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

west  of  the  Pontifical  Meridian,  the  system 
adopted  by  the  mother  country  embraced  five 
general  kinds  of  grants,  to-wit: 

1.  It  recognized  the  right  of  established 
native  towns  (pueblos  de  indios),  to  the  lands 
of  which  they  were  in  communal  possession 
at  the  time  of  the  conquest,  and  it  favored  the 
conquest  or  submission  of  wild  Indians  by 
the  creation  of  new  towns  endowed  with 
patrimonial  lands.  These  endowments  con- 
sisted generally  in  the  "fundo  legal"  (town- 
site)  destined  to  serve  as  the  seat  of  the  manor 
house  with  its  church  and  public  square;  in 
those  lands,  "'de  repartimiento,"  which  were 
distributed  among  the  families  of  natives  for 
their  use,  and  in  "ejidos"  which  were  lands 
for  the  common  use  of  inhabitants.  Occa- 
sionally, also,  it  comprised,  under  the  name  of 
'^parcialidades,"  certain  lands  allotted  to 
Indians,  the  products  of  which  were  to  be 
used  for  specific  communal  expenses.  The 
natives  were  forbidden  to  dispose  of  the  lands 
which  had  been  assigned  to  their  heads  of 
family. 

2.  It  conceded  to  this  or  that  'conqueror 
the  ownership  of  extensive  lands  as  a  reward 
of  his  achievements.  Thus,  for  example,  the 
"Marquisado  del  Valle"  entailed  to  the  de- 


Carranza  andJIisJBolshevik  Regime    139 

scendants  of  Hernan  Cortez,  extended  over 
several  thousand  square  leagues,  from  the 
high  plains  of  the  Central  Table  Lands  to  the 
shores  of  the  Pacific. 

3.  It  gave  to  the  Spaniards,  under  the 
name  *'encomiendas,"  certain  kinds  of  fiefs 
granted  for  life  and  comprising  extensive 
lands;  also  it  conferred  upon  them  the  right 
of  exploiting  said  lands  in  consideration  of 
their  agreement  to  give  instruction  in  the 
Catholic  religion  and  doctrines  to  the  native 
rural  population.  These  fiefs  made  the  in- 
habitants (encomendados)  veritable  slaves  of 
the  soil;  the  greater  part  of  the  fiefs  became 
hereditary  patrimonies  and  inertia,  aided  by 
traditional  conservatism,  served  to  perpetuate 
the  servitude  of  the  native  peons. 

4.  It  rewarded  soldiers  —  cavalrymen  and 
infantrymen  —  with  relatively  small  grants 
of  land  under  the  name  of  "caballeria"  or 
"peonia, "  to  be  cultivated  by  the  grantees  in 
compensation  for  their  services. 

5.  Finally,  it  transferred  lands  to  indi- 
viduals by  means  of  a  legal  instrument  of 
conveyance.  These  transfers  which  are  the 
origin  of  the  greater  part  of  Mexican  rural 
property,  embraced  immense  territorial  areas 
owing  to  the  small  consideration  for  which 
they  were  made. 


140    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

The  sales,  grants,  allotments  and,  in 
general,  all  transfers  of  land  made  during  the 
colonial  period  always  had  the  very  serious 
defect  of  describing  the  property  in  vague  and 
obscure  terms,  many  times  indicating  only 
the  location  and  area.  This  fault  was  not 
corrected  when  possession  was  granted  owing 
to  the  ambiguity  of  measurements,  boundaries 
and  points  of  record. 

The  balance  of  the  lands  not  transferred, 
remained  civil  property  of  the  Crown  of  Spain, 
and  for  that  reason,  as  the  mother  country  was 
continually  in  need  of  resources  for  its  con- 
stant wars,  there  was  introduced  the  abusive 
system  of  revision  ("  composicion  ")  of  titles  for 
the  purpose  of  adjusting  the  amount  of  land 
held  by  the  owners  to  the  dimensions  fixed  by 
the  said  titles  and  settling  the  surplus  through 
the  payment  of  certain  sums  of  money. 

Such  is  the  origin,  open  to  censure  from  all 
points  of  view,  of  the  system  of  alienation, 
revision,  measurement  and  survey  of  land, 
which  rendered  property  uncertain,  all  titles 
defective,  and  what  is  even  more  serious,  all 
possession  contestable,  giving  cause  or  pre- 
text for  frequent  spoliation. 

From  that  time,  with  the  exception  of 
landed  property  awarded  to  towns,  territorial 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    141 

property  in  what  is  today  known  as  the  Mexi- 
can Republic  was  marked  by  "latifundia," 
that  is,  by  lands  of  considerable  area  not 
available  for  cultivation  —  except  to  a  mini- 
mum degree  —  by  its  proprietors,  a  condition 
which  was  accentuated  in  the  course  of  years, 
thanks  to  unlimited  entailment  carried  through 
by  the  Church  in  spite  of  all  the  restrictions 
of  the  "Leyes  de  Indias"  (Statutes  for  the 
colonies). 

It  is  well  to  quote,  in  confirmation  of  what 
precedes,  the  following  data  taken  from  that 
very  excellent  treatise  of  Jose  L.  Cossio, 
entitled  "How  and  by  whom  Rural  Property 
in  Mexico  has  been  Monopolized." 

According  to  these  data,  the  entails  (vin- 
culaciones)  created  during  the  colonial  govern- 
ment embraced  immense  areas  of  land.  There 
is  no  need  to  mention  the  estates  of  Ibarra,  of 
the  Marshals  of  Castilla,  of  Flores  Valdez, 
of  the  Marquises  of  Salvatierra,  of  Urrutia 
de  Vergara,  of  La  Llave,  of  Higuera,  of  the 
Counts  of  Santiago  de  Calimaya,  of  the  Mar- 
quis of  Peduguera,  of  the  Counts  of  Casa  Rul, 
and  others  of  less  importance.  SuflSce  it 
to  say  that  the  estate  of  the  Marquis  del 
Valle  extended  over  the  Valleys  of  Mexico, 
Toluca,  Cuernavaca,  and  Oaxaca,  embracing 


142    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

also  part  of  Vera  Cruz  and  some  of  the  state 
of  Guerrero;  that  of  the  Count  of  el  Valle  de 
Orizaba  covered  seventy-six  haciendas  in  the 
states  of  Vera  Cruz,  Hidalgo  and  Puebla;  that 
of  the  Count  of  Regla  twenty-four  haciendas 
in  addition  to  eleven  unentailed  ones  situated 
in  various  states;  that  of  the  Count  of  Sierra 
Gorda  covered  enormous  areas  in  the  State 
of  Tamaulipas;  that  of  the  Marquis  of  San 
Miguel  Aguayo  more  than  two  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  square  leagues  in  the  district  of 
La  Laguna  alone  and  that  of  the  Marquis  of 
Guadalupe  more  than  two  hundred.  (*) 

The  number  of  haciendas  scattered  over  the 
whole  country,  which  fell  under  the  decree  of 
confiscation  of  Jesuit  property  issued  by 
King  Charles  III  of  Spain  amounted  to  one 
hundred  and  twenty-eight. 

Baron  Humboldt  calculated  in  1808,  that 
four-fifths  of  the  land  belonged  to  the  clergy; 
Doctor  Mora  estimated  their  holdings  in 
1833  at  $179,000,000;  Lucas  Alaman  con- 
sidered that  the  said  property  represented  not 
less  than  one-half  of  the  value  of  the  whole 
land  and  Miguel  Lerdo  de  Tejada  appraised 
it  between  $230,000,000  and  $300,000,000,  a 

*One  square  league  is  approximately  equivalent  to  seven  square  miles. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    143 

valuation  which  coincided  with  that  of  Lucas 
Alaman. 

It  is  true  that  these  enormous  areas  of  land 
were  subdivided  by  virtue  of  the  disentail- 
ment  laws  passed  at  the  beginning  of  the 
19th  century  by  the  Spanish  Congress  and 
ratified  by  the  independent  government  of 
Mexico,  as  also  by  the  disentailment  and 
nationalization  laws  enacted  during  the 
period  of  the  Reform;  but  even  though  the  mort- 
main was  ended,  there  still  remained  intact  the 
immense  haciendas  formerly  affected  by  it,  for 
neither  the  disentailment  nor  the  nationaliza- 
tion was  accompanied  by  the  subdivision  of 
rural  property  except  in  the  case  of  the  lands 
of  the  "pueblos." 

The  evil,  however,  did  not  stop  there,  but 
rather  was  brought  to  an  acute  crisis  by  the 
erroneous  policy  relative  to  contracts  of 
survey  and  colonization  which  President  Diaz 
developed  during  his  administration. 

From  1881  to  1889,  the  surveyed  lands 
reached  32,240,373  hectares  (*)  of  which 
12,693,610  hectares  were  awared  to  the  sur- 
veying companies  in  payment  for  surveying 
expenses,  and  14,813,980  hectares  were  sold 
or  promised  —  the  majority  of  them  to  the 

*Eacb  hectare  is  equivalent  to  approximately  two  and  one«haIf  acres. 


144    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

surveyors  themselves.  It  is  worthy  of  note 
that  the  number  of  individuals  and  companies 
benejBted  by  these  contracts  according  to  the 
"Boletin  de  Estadistica"  of  1889  was  only  29. 

Under  similar  conditions  12,382,292  hectares 
were  surveyed  from  1889  to  1892  and  from 
1904  to  1906  titles  to  the  number  of  260  and 
covering  2,648,540  hectares  were  issued  to 
surveying  companies  and  1,331  titles  to  na- 
tiotial  lands  embracing  an  area  of  4,445,665 
hectares  were  executed. 

The  deals  of  the  surveying  companies 
transacted  during  the  years  1881  to  1889, 
entailed,  consequently,  into  the  hands  of 
twenty-nine  individuals  or  companies  14% 
of  the  total  surface  of  the  Republic  and 
during  the  five  subsequent  years  a  few  other 
companies  monopolized  6%  more  of  the  total 
area.  In  other  words,  altogether  one-fifth  of 
the  whole  land  area  was  monopolized  by 
not  more  than  fifty  proprietors. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  division  of  "ejidos" 
(common  lands  of  the  native  towns)  made 
during  the  years  from  1877  to  1906  embraced 
only  19,983  titles  and  a  total  of  583,287 
hectares.  Assuming  that  the  "ejidos"  of 
each  town  included  approximately  1750  hect- 
ares, it  would  reach  a  total  of  330  towns, 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    145 

when  the  number  in  the  Republic  was  5,213. 

And  from  1898  to  1906,  357  titles  covering 
an  area  of  57,421  hectares  were  granted  to 
poor  laborers. 

Truthfully  speaking,  all  the  surveyed  area 
consisted  of  unimproved  lands,  many  of  them 
deserts,  others  absolutely  unfit  for  agriculture, 
and  a  few,  very  few  as  a  matter  of  fact,  with 
good  irrigation.  The  system  of  survey  and 
colonization  which  brought  about  this  im- 
mense monopoly  of  land  was,  nevertheless, 
a  serious  error,  because  on  the  one  hand,  under 
the  protection  of  the  respective  concessions 
there  did  not  fail  to  be  encroachments  upon 
the  small  landowners  whose  titles  and  measure- 
ments were  defective,  and  on  the  other  hand, 
those  areas  of  land  undoubtedly  lacked  the 
individual  attention  of  the  majority  of  the 
Mexican  people,  no  care  having  been  taken 
to  see  that  the  grantees  developed  effective 
works  of  irrigation  and  improvement  nor 
much  less  that  they  put  into  operation  that 
fountain  of  wealth. 

Such,  then,  is  the  origin  of  the  great 
"latifundia"  existing  in  the  Republic  and  of 
the  very  limited  importance  of  the  small  and 
medium  rural  property. 

But  the  persistence  of  those  "latifundia" 


146    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

through  the  economic  progress  of  the  Nation, 
must  be  imputed  to  two  coincident  causes, 
namely:  lack  of  capital,  and  lack  of  personnel 
adequate  for  the  agricultural  exploitation  of 
smaller  tracts. 

Mexican  land,  on  the  average,  is  not  ex- 
actly rich,  in  spite  of  the  belief  to  the  contrary 
which  has  prevailed  for  a  long  time.  From 
the  work  of  the  notable  Mexican  economist, 
Carlos  Diaz  Dufoo,  entitled  "Mexico  and 
Foreign  Capital,"  we  quote  the  following 
facts : 

"Owing  to  its  variegated  configuration, 
Mexico  presents  a  heterogeneous  pluvial  sys- 
tem. According  to  Mr.  Beltran  y  Puga, 
Engineer,  there  are  five  zones: 

"The  first  embraces  lands  in  which  pre- 
cipitation is  less  than  250  mm.  It  is  a  large 
land  zone  in  the  deserts  of  Sonora,  Chihuahua, 
and  Baja  California,  extending  southward  to 
24°  latitude,  in  the  Central  Table  Land.  Its 
area  is  296,000  square  mms.  *(15%  of  the 
area  of  the  Republic). 

"In  the  second  zone,  the  pluvial  precipita- 
tion varies  between  250  mm.  and  500  mm. 
It  comprises  part  of  the  States  of  Sonora, 
Chihuahua,  Durango,  Aguascalientes  and  San 

♦One  square  k.  m.  is  equivalent  to  approximately  250  acres. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    147 

Luis  Potosi.  It  embraces  340,000  square 
kms.  (17%  of  the  National  land.)  It  is  not 
a  zone  suitable  for  agriculture  either;  it  can 
be  compared  in  its  pluvial  system  to  La 
Mancha  (Spain),  a  region  which  none  will 
presume  to  call  desirable  for  agriculture. 

"In  the  third  zone,  the  precipitation  is 
between  500  mm.  and  1  meter.  This  zone 
embraces  the  coasts  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
and  from  the  Pacific  Ocean,  the  highest  part 
of  the  Central  Table  Land  to  the  east  of 
Oaxaca  and  to  the  western  part  of  the  penin- 
sula of  Yucatan.  Its  area  is  848,000  square 
kms.  (42%  of  the  area  of  the  Republic). 
Its  pluvial  system,  very  superior  to  the  other 
two,  presents  conditions  favorable  to  agricul- 
ture although  not  on  that  account  does  it 
surpass  some  districts  of  Europe,  as  the  west- 
ern part  of  England,  the  Mediterranean  coast 
of  France,  etc.,  and  even  these  cannot  be  said 
to  have  the  best  supply. 

"The  fourth  zone  has  pluvial  precipitations 
of  between  1  and  2  meters  and  embraces  the 
southern  coasts  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  of 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  the  eastern  part  of 
Yucatan.  Its  area  is  424,000  square  kms. 
(20%  of  the  area  of  the  country)  and  may  be 
compared,  as  to  rains,  with  the  North  of  Spain, 


148    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

the  eastern  coast  of  Australia,  some  districts 
of  Chile,  the  west  coast  of  Norway,  and  the 
plains  which  extend  over  the  foothills  of  the 
Alps.  Unfortunately  this  precipitation  is  not 
invariable  and  there  are  years  in  which  it 
diminishes  considerably. 

"The  fifth,  finally  embraces  small  portions 
of  the  coasts  of  Vera  Cruz  and  Tabasco  on 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  the  coasts  of  the 
State  of  Chiapas  on  the  Pacific  covering  an 
area  of  43,000  square  kms.  In  this  zone  the 
rain-falls  are  torrential. 

"The  French  writer,  Raul  Bigot,  engineer 
of  arts  and  crafts  of  the  College  of  Paris,  who 
has  visited  our  country,  in  his  "Notes  Econo- 
miques  sur  le  Mexique"  asserts  that  over  a 
surface  of  198,720,000  hectares,  the  country 
presented  at  the  end  of  1903,  39.6%  of  its 
land  area  utilized  in  the  following  form : 

Cultivated  hectares,  not  under  irrigation  10,605,887 
Cultivated  hectares,  irrigated 1,550,980 

Cultivated  hectares 12,156,867 

Hectares  of  pastures 48,762,849 

Hectares  of  forests 17,786,715 

Total 78,706,431 

"The    12,156,867    cultivated    hectares    re- 
present a  little  over  6%  of  the  land  area." 
Of  the  extensive  zones  subject  to  contracts 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    149 

of  colonization  only  insignificant  lots  can  be 
used  for  cultivation.  All  efforts  made,  whether 
by  the  government  or  by  private  enterprises, 
failed  for  reasons  not  worthy  of  mention  here. 

In  virtue  of  the  law  of  1894,  the  said  zones 
almost  as  a  whole  were  relieved  of  the  condi- 
tion relative  to  colonization,  the  Federal 
Government  extending  the  title  of  ownership 
pure  and  simple  pending  additional  payments, 
generally  made  by  the  grantees.  It  can  be 
said  with  relation  to  these  zones  that  the 
greater  part,  if  not  all,  were  transferred  in  a 
"bona  fide"  manner  to  a  third  party.  Only 
a  small  area  of  these  lands  has  been  cultivated 
owing  in  some  localities  to  a  scantiness  of 
population,  in  others  to  aridity  of  soil,  and 
in  not  a  few  to  both  circumstances  combined. 
The  greater  area  has  been  devoted  to  cattle- 
raising,  but  the  rest,  which  is  quite  consider- 
able, still  remains  uncultivated. 

Of  the  zones  awarded  to  the  surveying  com- 
panies in  payment  of  surveying  expenses,  all 
were  held  in  fee  simple  and  their  exploita- 
tion carried  out  under  conditions  similar  to 
those  affecting  the  lands  alloted  for  coloniza- 
tion. 

Rural  properties  acquired  as  stated  in  this 
chapter,  whether  of  the  colonial  era,  or  in  the 


150    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

independent  period,  occasionally  were  sub- 
divided by  means  of  hereditary  transfer. 
But,  frequently,  such  transfer  amounted  to 
keeping  the  property  technically  undivided 
in  shares  although  actually  distributing  it  in 
specific  parcels  of  land  to  the  successive 
generations,  and  this  practice  resulted  in  an 
insuflSciency  of  titles  and  documents  difficult 
to  validate.  Such  was  the  occasion  for  the 
spoliation  committed  by  surveying  companies 
and  by  claimants  of  waste  lands  since  the 
laws  on  the  matter  did  not  provide  an  effectual 
manner  of  establishing  ownership  without  the 
existence  of  a  proper  instrument  of  convey- 
ance. 

The  balance  of  the  landed  estates  were 
conserved  in  the  form  of  large  haciendas 
worked  to  a  small  degree  as  agricultural  en- 
terprises, and  much  more  so  for  cattle  raising, 
but  barren  in  their  greater  surface  owing  to 
that  same  lack  of  irrigation  already  spoken  of, 
and  also,  in  not  a  few  instances,  owing  to  the 
want  of  easy  access  to  the  markets  of  con- 
sumption." 

Generally  short  of  ready  money,  and  devoid 
of  the  spirit  of  enterprise,  it  was  only  the 
exception  among  those  great  landowners  who 
attempted  to  improve  his  lands  with  works  of 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    151 

irrigation,  and  country  roads  or  with  the 
application  of  fertiUzers  and  modern  methods 
of  cultivation. 

Consequently,  the  average  productivity  of 
Mexican  lands  according  to  statistical  data 
is  and  has  been  positively  poor. 

In  more  populated  regions  and  with  ele- 
ments of  irrigation  —  of  which  the  basin  of 
the  Nazas,  the  Bajio,  and  a  large  part  of 
Jalisco  can  serve  as  an  example  —  the  medium 
sized  and  also  the  small  property  could  be 
created.  In  most  instances,  however,  large 
estates  were  parcelled  into  lots  by  their 
owners  and  granted  to  farmers  for  exploita- 
tion under  lease  contracts  or  on  a  crop-sharing 
basis    (aparceria) . 

With  the  above  exceptions,  the  farming 
work  was  done  by  means  of  peons  who  are,  as 
a  whole,  of  mixed  race  or  natives,  true  serfs 
of  the  soil,  condemned,  through  lack  of  educa- 
tion, to  live  precariously  from  hand  to  mouth, 
ignorant,  devoid  of  a  spirit  of  economy  and 
foresight,  slaves  to  routine  and  lax  in  work. 

During  the  last  years  of  the  Diaz  admin- 
istration, contracts  of  irrigation  were  closed 
with  several  enterprises,  the  principal  condi- 
tion of  which  was  the  division  of  lands  and 
sales  in  small  lots.     The  carrying  out  of  those 


15%    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

contracts  just  barely  began,  for  the  majority 
of  the  enterprises  were  surprised  at  the  very 
beginning  of  their  labors  by  the  revolution. 

Finally,  as  to  native  property,  it  was  re- 
spected, sanctioned,  and  improved  by  the 
laws  of  the  Indies  and  confirmed  by  native 
legislation.  Thus  it  subsisted  until  the  period 
of  Reform  when  the  disentailment  of  public 
land  of  the  Indian  towns  (pueblos)  and  its 
subdivision  and  allotment  to  the  heads  of 
families  was  ordered.  It  has  already  been 
stated  that  on  executing  these  laws  barely 
19,883  deeds  were  issued  with  a  total  area  of 
582,237  hectares,  insignificant  in  comparison 
with  the  nine  million  hectares  which  should 
legally  correspond  to  the  native  communities 
existing    at   the    beginning   of   this   century. 

Of  the  native  grantees  of  parcels  of  said 
communities,  not  a  few  hastened  to  sell  what 
had  been  apportioned  to  them;  others,  if  we 
believe  general  opinion,  were  despoiled  of 
their  property  by  the  Indian  Chiefs  of  the 
locality. 

It  also  seems  certain  that  of  the  balance  of 
common  lands  which  were  not  divided  and 
allotted  to  the  residents,  a  good  portion  was 
subject  to  usurpations,  or  rather,  to  successive 
encroachments     by    the    surrounding    large 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    158 

owners,  giving  cause  for  cruel  antagonism  be- 
tween "pueblos"  and  owners  of  estates  and 
the  fixed  conviction  of  the  native  race  that  it 
had  been  infamously  despoiled. 

In  this  connection,  however,  it  is  timely  to 
make  it  clear  that  in  answer  to  the  petitions 
for  restitution  presented  by  the  people  to  the 
various  agrarian  commissions  according  to 
the  oflScial  report  submitted  to  the  Federal 
Congress  by  the  government  of  Carranza, 
only  21,284  hectares  have  been  granted  by  way 
of  restitution,  so  that  it  has  been  necessary  to 
concede  endowments,  equivalent  to  86,746 
hectares. 

This  study  of  the  private  agricultural 
property,  as  far  as  concerns  its  owners,  con- 
dition, possibilities,  form  of  cultivation,  and 
men  available  to  work  it,  discloses  two 
aspects  in  the  land  problem,  namely:  that  of 
the  redistribution  of  land  and  that  of  restitu- 
tion. 

The  first,  which  is  the  more  important,  may 
be  summed  up  as  follows: 

There  exist  immense  areas  in  the  form  of 
"latifundia"  which  were  created  by  laws  duly 
enacted  and  grants  from  legitimate  authori- 
ties. Those  properties  establish  undeniable 
rights  of  ownership  on  account  of  their  legal 


154    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

origin,  also  by  prescription,  and,  if  we  desire 
further  reasons,  were  sustained,  in  the  ma- 
jority of  cases,  by  principles  of  equity  in 
favor  of  bona  fide  third  acquirers. 

A  minimum  part  of  such  latifundia  is 
irrigated  and  together  with  all  other  private 
properties  under  irrigation  makes  only  eight- 
tenths  per  cent  of  the  total  area  of  the  country. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  lands  farmed  without 
irrigation  works  scarcely  reach  altogether 
much  more  than  five  per  cent  of  said  total 
area. 

As  far  as  the  lands  of  the  "pueblos"  are 
concerned,  their  area,  approximately  equi- 
valent altogether  to  four  and  one-half  per 
cent  of  the  total  surface  of  Mexico,  is  almost 
entirely  devoid  of  irrigation  works  and  is 
unsuitable  for  agriculture. 

The  relatively  small  number  of  tenants 
and  "aparceros"  (crop-sharing  farmers)  who 
have  already  acquired  the  habits  and  aptitudes 
indispensable  to  free  farm  hands  could  well 
and  conveniently  be  changed  into  the  per- 
sonnel for  parcelled  lands. 

It  would  also  be  well  to  add  to  this  per- 
sonnel that  of  the  natives  who  have  kept  on 
living  in  their  old  towns  and  communities 
devoting  themselves  to  labor  in  the  fields; 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    155 

but  it  should  be  under  the  express  condition 
of  not  abandoning  them  at  first  to  their  own 
efforts  and  resources,  for,  even  though  there 
exists  in  them  the  embryo  of  an  autonomous 
farmer,  nevertheless  a  great  effort  of  educa- 
tion and  helpfulness  is  necessary  to  make 
them  get  out  of  the  rut,  familiarize  themselves 
with  modern  methods,  implements,  and  fer- 
tilizers which  are  necessary  to  intensive 
agriculture,  create  in  them  habits  of  economy, 
and,  finally,  finance  them  in  their  first  efforts. 

Under  this  aspect  of  the  problem,  its  solu- 
tion is  not  simply  to  be  found  in  laws  which 
may  declare  of  public  utility  the  division  and 
distribution  of  lands.  Those  laws  are  not 
new;  many  have  been  enacted  since  Mexico 
became  independent,  for  the  development  of 
its  agricultural  wealth  has  been  the  constant 
concern  if  its  public  men. 

In  confirmation  of  this  assertion,  we  can 
cite  the  decree  of  January  4th,  1823,  upon 
foreign  colonization;  that  of  July  4th  of  the 
same  year  upon  the  distribution  of  lands  to 
the  members  of  the  standing  army;  that  of  the 
30th  of  the  same  month  ordering  the  distribu- 
tion of  San  Lorenzo  among  the  residents  of 
Chachapalcingo;  those  of  the  19th  of  July, 
6th  of  August  and  the  18th  of  September  of 


156    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

the  following  year  upon  the  assignment  of 
national  lands  to  the  defenders  of  the  country; 
the  most  important  and  general  one  was  that 
of  the  14th  of  October,  1823,  upon  the  division 
of  lands  in  the  Isthmus  of  Tehuantepec  and 
others  too  numerous  to  mention. 

What  is  more  needed  than  laws,  is  a  plan, 
clear  and  thoughtfully  conceived,  for  the 
gradual  acquisition  by  purchase  or  expro- 
priation, on  a  cash  basis,  of  lands  adaptable 
to  subdivision;  a  policy  of  well  thought-out 
contracts  of  irrigation  with  the  same  object; 
the  improvement  of  lands  for  works  of  this 
nature  and  construction  of  roads;  practical 
and  regional  propaganda  for  the  spread  of 
modern  agricultural  knowledge  and  the  erec- 
tion of  adequate  oflScial  and  extra-official 
institutions  for  providing  the  capital  necessary 
for  permanent  works  as  well  as  for  supplies 
to  laborers  and  the  equipment  suitable  for  the 
lands  when  they  are  divided. 

The  basis  of  this  program  must  be  the 
recognition  of  rights  acquired,  pending  real 
indemnity  and  not  simply  promises  of  pay- 
ment in  case  of  expropriation;  because 
there  is  no  indemnity,  property  ownership 
ceases  to  be  a  respectable  and  respected  right. 
Under  such  conditions,  on  the  one  hand  its 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    157 

value  depreciates,  and  on  the  other  the  capital 
necessary  to  work  it  will  be  driven  away  to 
seek  less  precarious  and  more  profitable  in- 
vestments. 

The  second  aspect  of  the  problem,  that  of 
recovery  against  unjust  spoliation  of  lands  is 
rather  ethical-social  than  agrarian.  All  these 
restitutions  added  together  would  not  con- 
tribute to  the  agricultural  industry  a  sub- 
stantial proportion  of  lands  suitable  for  culti- 
vation and  they  would  leave  the  problem 
unsolved,  for  we  have  seen  that  the  lands 
technically  belonging  to  the  "pueblos"  would 
reach  four  and  a  half  per  cent  of  the  national 
territory. 

There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  it  is  im- 
perative to  give  satisfaction  to  this  claim  of 
justice;  but  it  is  necessary  to  do  it  without 
undermining  the  two  bases  which  support  the 
right  of  ownership;  the  res  ad  judicata  and  the 
prescription.  It  is  necessary  to  do  it  without 
converting  the  despoilers  into  despoilees. 

The  institution  called  upon  to  give  each 
one  what  belongs  to  him  is  the  judicial  branch 
of  the  administration;  to  it,  therefore,  should 
be  referred  the  power  of  acting  upon  all  ques- 
tions relative  to  restitution;  and  if  the  actual 
laws  of  procedure  are  slow,  cumbersome,  and 


158    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

costly,  if  in  them  technicality  predominates 
over  equity,  it  is  necessary  to  modify  them  in 
such  a  way  that  the  tribunals,  in  full  knowl- 
edge of  the  transaction,  may  decide  easily 
and  justly  whether  it  is  a  case  of  restitution 
without  compensation  to  the  expropriated 
party,  or  one  of  expropriation  in  order  to 
make  settlement  upon  the  claimant  pueblos. 

Such  is  the  form  in  which  the  Congress  of 
Queretaro  should  have  considered  the  two 
fundamental  problems  relating  to  private 
ownership  of  land;  that  of  equitable  redis- 
tribution of  this  wealth  and  that  of  restitution. 

The  Congress  of  Queretaro  was  not  a 
body  of  men  level-headed  and  capable  of 
discriminating  between  the  just  and  the  un- 
just, the  proper  and  the  improper.  We  have 
already  stated  and  shown  that  the  majority 
of  members  of  that  body  were  moved  by  class 
hatred,  by  a  spirit  of  rapine,  and  by  the  most 
radical  conceptions  of  social  change. 

Therefore,  the  land  problem  in  its  double 
aspect  received  solutions  in  which  iniquity 
rivalled  stupidity. 

The  now  famous  Article  27  contained  the 
following  provision: 

"All  proceedings,  findings,  decisions  and  all 
operations  of  demarcation,  concession,  com- 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    159 

position,  judgment,  compromise,  alienation, 
or  auction  which  may  have  deprived  properties 
held  in  common  by  co-owners,  hamlets  situated 
on  private  property,  settlements,  congrega- 
tions, tribes  and  other  settlement  organiza- 
tions still  existing  since  the  law  of  June  25, 
1856,  of  the  whole  or  a  part  of  their  lands, 
woods  and  waters,  are  declared  null  and  void; 
all  findings,  resolutions  and  operations  which 
may  subsequently  take  place  and  produce 
the  same  effects  shall  likewise  be  null  and  void. 
Consequently  all  lands,  forests  and  waters 
of  which  the  above-mentioned  settlements 
may  have  been  deprived  shall  be  restored  to 
them  according  to  the  decree  of  January  6, 
1915,  which  shall  remain  in  force  as  a  con- 
stitutional law.  In  case  the  adjudication  of 
lands,  by  way  of  restitution,  be  not  legal  in 
the  terms  of  the  said  decree,  which  adjudica- 
tion may  have  been  requested  by  any  of  the 
above  entities,  those  lands  shall  nevertheless  be 
given  to  them  by  way  of  grant,  and  they  shall 
in  no  event  fail  to  receive  such  as  they  may 
need.  Only  such  lands,  title  to  which  may 
have  been  acquired  in  the  divisions  made  by 
virtue  of  the  said  law  of  June  25,  1856,  or 
such  as  may  be  held  in  undisputed  owner- 
ship for  more  than  ten  years  are  excepted 


160    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

from  the  provision  of  nullity,  provided  their 
area  does  not  exceed  fifty  hectares.  Any 
excess  over  this  area  shall  be  returned  to  the 
commune  and  the  owner  shall  be  indemnified. 
All  laws  of  restitution  enacted  by  virtue  of 
this  provision  shall  be  immediately  carried 
into  effect  by  the  administrative  authorities. 
Only  members  of  the  commune  shall  have  the 
right  to  the  Iknds  destined  to  be  divided,  and 
the  rights  to  these  lands  shall  be  inalienable 
so  long  as  they  remain  undivided;  the  same 
provision  shall  govern  the  right  of  ownership 
after  the  division  has  been  made. 

*'The  exercise  of  the  rights  pertaining  to 
the  Nation  by  virtue  of  this  article  shall 
follow  judicial  process;  but  as  a  part  of  this 
process  and  by  order  of  the  proper  tribunals, 
which  order  shall  be  issued  within  the  maxi- 
mum period  of  one  month,  the  administra- 
tive authorities  shall  proceed  without  delay 
to  the  occupation,  administration,  auction, 
or  sale  of  the  lands  and  waters  in  question, 
together  with  all  their  appurtenances,  and 
in  no  case  may  the  acts  of  the  said  authorities 
be  set  aside  until  final  sentence  is  handed 
down. " 

All  guarantees  of  stabihty  for  vested  rights 
consecrated  by  the  world's  institutions  are 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    161 

disavowed  by  this  precept;  all  acts  of  the 
public  authorities  consummated  since  June 
25,  1856,  that  is,  for  half  a  century,  are 
annulled.  The  good  faith  of  the  acquirer  is 
not  respected  nor  the  saving  principle  of  the 
positive  prescription,  except  for  surfaces  not 
exceeding  fifty  hectares,  nor  the  undeniable 
canon  of  res  adjudicata.  When,  in  case 
of  expropriations,  indemnity  is  authorized 
to  the  owner,  no  guaranty  is  given  that 
this  indemnity  will  be  in  advance  and  in 
cash,  and,  finally  special  authority  to  make 
preliminary  examination  of  all  these  actions 
is  conferred  upon  administrative  commissions 
instead  of  being  granted  to  tribunals. 

We  already  know  what  the  results  of  this 
precept  have  been;  agrarian  commissions  have 
been  formed  in  each  one  of  the  states  charged 
with  examining  the  proceedings  for  restitu- 
tion and  endowment,  and  those  commissions 
have  sold  their  judgments  to  the  highest 
bidder,  constituting  a  rich  and  inexhaustible 
foimtain  of  levies  and  bribes. 

"Excelsior,"  a  newspaper  of  the  City  of 
Mexico  known  for  its  conservatism  and  moder- 
ation, in  its  issue  of  August  18,  1919,  states 
in  the  following  terms  that  the  reformation 
of  the  personnel  of  the  agrarian  commission 
was  being  undertaken: 


162    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

"In  view  of  precise  and  conclusive  reports 
which  have  been  suppHed  us  by  some  persons 
who  have  been  on  local  agrarian  commissions, 
established  in  the  various  states  of  the  Re- 
public, we  can  say  that  the  commissions  have 
been  responsible  for  the  conflicts  which  have 
arisen  between  them,  the  people,  and  the 
proprietors. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  owing  to  the  work  of 
reformation  carried  out  by  the  President  of 
the  National  Agrarian  Commission,  at  present 
there  are  at  the  head  of  the  local  commissions, 
decent  and  undoubtedly  honorable  people 
competent  to  execute  the  resolutions  adopted 
relative  to  restitution  and  settlement  of  public 
lands. 

"  But,  formerly,  the  personnel  which  formed 
several  of  the  local  agrarian  commissions  was 
so  useless  and  corrupt  that  complaints  and 
protests  were  received  daily  by  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture  and  at  length  by  the 
President  of  the  Republic  until  it  was  finally 
decided  to  take  radical  and  energetic  measures. 

"The  evil  was  general  and  for  that  reason 
we  cannot  even  fix  charges  against  one 
particular  agrarian  commission.  Many  com- 
missioners, without  the  least  scruple,  exacted 
money  from  people  for  a  favorable  decision 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    163 

whether  they  were  Indians  soUciting  pubhc 
lands  or  land  owners  who  opposed  some  land 
division. 

"A  long  time  ago  we  received  reports  of  the 
corruption  which  prevailed  in  the  local  agra- 
rian commissions,  but  as  we  did  not  at  once 
acquire  proofs  to  substantiate  those  charges 
so  as  to  secure  the  exposure  of  the  offenders, 
much  to  our  regret  we  had  to  wait  until  we 
were  in  possession  of  precise  data. 

"The  conflicts  which  arose  between  the 
agrarian  commissions,  the  "pueblos"  and  the 
land  owners  were  usually  as  follows:  the  com- 
missions would  refuse  to  hand  down  their 
decisions  providing  for  the  restitution  or 
endowment  of  lands  in  favor  of  a  soliciting 
pueblo  even  though  it  might  be  in  the  right, 
unless  a  sum  of  money  large  enough  to  be 
distributed  among  the  members  of  the  com- 
mission were  given. 

"The  corresponding  petition  would  be  con- 
sidered and  when  a  decision  was  about  to  be 
given,  one  or  two  of  the  members  of  the 
agrarian  commission  would  appear  before  the 
owner  of  the  lands  to  be  divided  and  to 
other  residents  of  the  claimant  pueblos. 
They  would  then,  in  spite  of  protests  from 
the  opponents,  give  the  decision  to  the  side 
paying  the  largest  sum  of  money. 


164    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

"Other  corrupt  acts  were  committed,  but 
not  like  that  already  mentioned  which  angered 
everybody  who  was  aware  of  it. 

"We  can  mention  the  former  local  com- 
missions of  the  States  of  Jalisco,  Puebla, 
Tlaxcala,  and  others  where  there  was  greater 
corruption,  to  such  an  extent  that  the  National 
Commission  with  the  approval  of  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Republic  and  the  Secretary  of 
Agriculture  found  it  necessary  to  send  in- 
spectors to  make  a  revision  of  the  acts  of 
restitution  and  endowment  of  lands  with 
instructions  to  revoke  any  resolutions  which 
lacked  legality. 

"The  appointment  of  inspectors  gave  very 
good  results  according  to  reports  received  by 
us.  Due  to  it,  not  a  few  resolutions  were 
revoked  on  account  of  illegality  and,  in  gen- 
eral, all  the  members  of  the  local  commissions 
against  whom  charges  were  brought  and 
proved,  were  relieved  of  their  duties. 

"We  are  informed  that  the  National  Agra- 
rian Commission  which  has  charge  of  the 
solution  of  the  important  agrarian  problem 
was  on  the  point  of  failing  radically  at  the 
time  that  it  was  decided  to  take  morahzing 
and  energetic  measures  which,  apparently, 
have  given  very  good  results." 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    165 

The  above  quoted  Article  27  further  pro- 
vides in  its  last  paragraph  as  follows: 

"All  contracts  and  concessions  made  by 
former  governments  from  and  after  the  year 
1876  which  shall  have  resulted  in  the  monopoly 
of  lands,  waters  and  natural  resources  of  the 
Nation  by  a  single  individual  or  corporation, 
are  declared  subject  to  revision,  and  the 
Executive  is  authorized  to  declare  those  null 
and  void  which  seriously  prejudice  the  public 
interest. " 

This  provision  is  even  more  outrageous 
than  the  preceding,  because  it  sanctions  the 
power  of  the  Executive  of  the  Union — that  is, 
of  one  official  who  according  to  the  same  con- 
stitution is  irresponsible — to  declare  null  the 
transference  of  property  made  by  legally 
constituted  governments  since  the  year  1876, 
and,  this,  without  any  consideration  of  the 
fact  that  those  transferences  have  been  made 
in  strict  accordance  with  the  law;  in  other 
words,  to  render  them  null,  it  is  enough  that 
in  the  judgment  of  the  President  of  the 
Republic  they  carry  a  monopoly  of  land 
detrimental  to  public  interest. 

Exercising  this  stupendous  power,  the  Fed- 
eral Executive  has  already  confiscated  millions 
of  hectares  without  the  slightest  argument 
of  justice  or  equity. 


166    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

Where  spoliation  is  an  institutional  system, 
there  are  properly  no  rights  and  no  law; 
there  is  anarchy,  and  anarchy  never  is,  nor 
can  it  be,  the  foundation  for  tranquility  and 
prosperity  of  a  country. 

Finally,  other  sections  of  the  quoted  article 
27  of  the  Federal  Constitution  relative  to 
the  subdivision  of  lands,  authorize  the  State 
Legislature  to  determine  the  maximum  area 
which  each  individual  or  company  may  possess, 
and  to  fix  the  terms  under  which  expropriation 
must  be  conducted ;  and  on  the  understanding 
that  its  value  is  not  payable  in  cash,  but 
rather  in  a  minimum  term  of  20  years,  with 
a  maximum  annual  interest  of  5  per  cent.,  and 
in  bonds  of  a  special  issue  called  agrarian. 

It  would  have  been  natural  to  have  pro- 
tected from  these  threatened  expropriations 
those  landowners  who  had  shown  a  pro- 
gressive and  enterprising  spirit  by  starting 
improvements  of  importance  on  their  lands; 
it  would  also  have  been  prudent  to  have 
exempted  from  expropriation  those  lands 
which  in  the  future  might  be  irrigated  by 
their  owners.  By  these  means,  security  would 
have  been  given  to  former  investments  and 
an  incentive  for  future  ones. 

Instead,  all  landowners  are  threatened  with 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    167 

being  deprived  of  their  property  by  means  of 
low  compensation  payable  in  depreciated 
agrarian  bonds. 

The  basis  for  indemnity,  in  fact,  is  the 
assessed  value,  and  this,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  is  equivalent  to  barely  25  or  30  per  cent, 
of  its  real  value. 

As  to  the  agrarian  bonds  which  may  be 
issued,  what  value  can  they  have  when  the 
Federal  Government  is  in  bankruptcy  and  the 
bankruptcy  of  the  States  is  even  more  over- 
whelming.^ The  administration  ends  annual- 
ly with  a  deficit  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it 
leaves  undischarged  several  important  civil 
services  and  does  not  pay  one  single  cent  of 
interest  on  the  recognized  national  debt. 
And  the  States  are  in  need  of  constant  loans 
from  the  Federal  Government  in  order  to 
pay  but  half  of  their  most  pressing  expenses. 
According  to  oflScial  data  of  the  Department 
of  the  Treasury,  the  following  are  the  amounts 
owed  to  the  Federal  Government  by  the 
various  states  for  loans  which,  in  general, 
date  from  the  1st  of  May,  1917,  to  the  31st 
of  December,  1918,  and  which  represent  on 
an  average  20  per  cent,  of  the  total  annual 
revenue  of  the  said  states: 


168    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

Chihuahua $118,774.83 

Coahuila 110,947.88 

Colima 67,152.05 

Durango 29,983 .21 

Guanajuato 39,748.20 

Guerrero 95,171 .60 

Jalisco 410,631 .96 

Mexico 92,994.25 

Michoacan 534,963 .  12 

Oaxaca 149,020.70 

Puebla 126,458.50 

Queretaro 124,674.21 

San  Luis  Potosi 553,874.38 

Sinaloa 146,140.38 

Sonora 224,096. 02 

Tlaxcala 51,168.20 

Zacatecas 143,366.06 

Various  State  Legislatures  have  already 
begun  to  carry  out  their  laws  of  apportion- 
ment, and,  as  was  to  be  feared,  the  expropri- 
ations are  being  directed  against  those  very 
enterprises  which  have  already  made  a  con- 
siderable investment  in  works  of  irrigation 
and  improvement. 

With  such  a  menace,  who  will  dare  in  the 
future  to*  undertake  new  enterprises,  to  con- 
tribute new  capital,  to  convert  waste  and 
barren  lands  into  real  and  positive  founts  of 
production  and  wealth? 

Rural  property  has  already  suffered  serious 
exactions,  and  continues  to  be  threatened  on 
all  sides  by  mortal  dangers. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    169 

Mexican  landowners,  if  they  are  utilitarians 
or  fainthearted,  give  in  to  convenience  or 
terror  and  barter  their  rights  at  the  price  of 
bribes;  if  they  are  manly  of  spirit,  they  prefer 
to  fight  rather  than  become  the  accomplices 
of  corruption;  and  all  seize  the  opportunity 
of  selling  their  possessions  even  for  ridiculous 
amounts. 

Those  who  feel  least  insecure  are  foreigners 
who  have  the  diplomatic  protection  of  their 
governments.  After  each  offense,  there 
follows  an  international  remonstrance,  a  bitter 
dispute,  a  protest  and  the  cloud  of  threatened 
intervention  comes  nearer  and  becomes  blacker 
each  day. 

In  the  same  proportion  that  cautious 
foreigners  refrain  from  investing  more  capital, 
speculators  are  on  the  hunt  for  cheap  estates; 
the  business,  to  them,  is  a  game  of  poker  in 
which  they  have  the  winning  hand;  they  buy 
and  buy  lands  at  insignificant  prices  and  in 
amounts  that  cannot  but  cause  alarm. 

In  that  way,  the  industry  of  agriculture  is 
dragged  on  the  ground,  serious  and  enter- 
prising capital  flees,  corruption  and  poverty 
in  the  administration  corrode  the  innermost 
recesses  of  society,  our  land  is  passing  into 
the   hands    of   foreign    stock    gamblers,    the 


170    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

national  conscience  finds  no  peace,  the  inter- 
national situation  darkens,  and  order  and 
progress  are  longed  for  futilely. 

In  the  agrarian  problem,  as  in  almost  all 
others,  the  constitution  of  Queretaro,  instead 
of  being  constructive,  just,  and  useful,  is 
contrary  to  law,  dissolvent  and  destructive. 

As  we  have  already  said,  it  is  not  a  national 
work,  it  is  abortive,  Bolshevik. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

Whatev^er  tends  to  throttle  the  economic 
hberty  is  an  impediment  in  the  way  of,  if 
not  an  absolute  hindrance  to,  material  pro- 
gress. For  that  reason  the  Constitution  of 
1857  condemned  explicitly  all  monopolies 
and  prohibitions  which,  professing  to  protect 
industry,  had  in  former  years  contributed  to 
the  misery  of  the  masses  while  benefiting 
a  small  privileged  minority. 

But  there  is  no  doubt  that  apart  from  the 
evils  of  monopolies  protected  by  the  coaction 
of  the  State,  the  increasing  development  of 
modern  capitalism  gives  rise  to  similar  ills, 
such  as  combinations  and  syndicates,  which 
artificially  limit  the  production  or  the  supply 
of  articles  of  prime  necessity,  or  lessen  the 
facilities  disposable  for  their  transportation 
with  the  deliberate  object  of  obtaining  ex- 
cessive profits. 

Industrial  and  commercial  liberty  is  a 
desirable  institution  inasmuch  as,  leading  to 
open  competition,  it  directs  capital  and  labor 
towards   the   most   remunerative   enterprises 


172    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

and  thus  there  is  maintained  an  equiHbrium 
in  the  production  and  distribution  of  wealth, 
and  the  discovery  and  exploitation  of  unknown 
energies  of  nature  is  favored. 

But  when  free  competition  is  destroyed  in 
the  name  of  such  liberty;  when  rather  than 
enlarge  the  output  of  material  commodities 
it  is  used  to  increase  artificially  their  cost  for 
the  benefit  of  a  few;  when  it  is  turned  into  an 
instrument  of  wicked  slavery  and  becomes  a 
cause  of  impoverishment,  it  ceases  to  be  a 
social  institution  and  becomes  actually  anti- 
social. 

To  the  list  of  prohibitions  contained  in  our 
old  Fundamental  Code,  the  new  one  very 
justly  adds  in  its  Article  28  the  following: 
"any  accumulation  or  cornering  by  one  or 
more  persons  of  necessaries  for  the  purpose 
of  bringing  about  a  rise  in  prices;  any  act 
or  measure  which  shall  stifle  or  endeavor  to 
stifle  free  competition  in  any  production, 
industry,  trade  or  public  service;  any  agree- 
ment or  combination  of  any  kind  entered  into 
by  producers,  manufacturers,  merchants,  com- 
mon carriers  or  other  public  or  quasi-public 
service,  to  stifle  competition  and  to  compel 
the  consumer  to  pay  exorbitant  prices;  and 
in  general  whatever  constitutes  an  unfair  and 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    173 

exclusive  advantage  in  favor  of  one  or  more 
specified  person  or  persons  to  the  detriment 
of  the  public  in  general  or  of  any  special 
class  of  society." 

This  change,  as  it  stands,  is  highly  com- 
mendable, provided  that  the  danger  of  official 
abuse  of  power  is  averted  by  wise  laws. 
But  the  new  Constitution,  leaping  in  this 
matter,  as  in  others,  to  the  opposite  extreme, 
abolishes  the  provision  for  certain  tax  ex- 
emptions formerly  made  and  intended  as  a 
stimulus  to  industry. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  under  the  pretext 
of  encouraging  the  development  of  the  natural 
resources  and  industries  of  the  country,  the 
system  of  franchises  under  the  old  regime 
gave  ample  and  frequent  opportunities  for 
favoritism.  But  the  fact  is  that  the  few 
isolated  evils  were  less,  infinitely  less,  than  the 
benefits  derived  by  the  country  from  the 
adoption  of  that  system. 

Is  it  necessary  for  us  to  review  the  well 
known  economic  progress  of  Mexico  during 
the  administration  of  General  Diaz.^^ 

The  nation,  seeking  to  emerge  from  its 
state  of  economic  isolation  and  atrophy, 
found  no  other  road  open  save  that  of  en- 
couraging the  investment  of  foreign  capital. 


174    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

With  that  end  in  view,  it  granted  franchises, 
exempted  taxes,  and  even  subsidized  certain 
enterprises.  In  that  way,  and  only  in  that 
way,  was  it  able  to  secure  railroads  and  erect 
foundries,  open  immense  mining  zones,  employ 
modern  metallurgy  for  working  low  rate 
ores,  develop  and  exploit  the  carboniferous 
beds  on  the  frontier  and  the  extensive  deposits 
of  petroleum  along  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
promote  commercial  and  agricultural  credit, 
lay  the  foundations  for  future  Mexican  in- 
dustry, and  in  general,  convert  into  tangible 
riches  the  latent  potentialities  of  the  country. 
The  system  of  franchises  was  on  the  whole 
beneficial  whatever  may  have  been  the  abuses 
to  which  it  gave  rise  in  many  instances. 
Therefore,  inasmuch  as  the  resources  of  the 
country  were  not  fully  developed  by  the  end 
of  1916,  and  in  addition  the  revolutions  had 
impoverished  the  nation  anew  and  to  the 
utmost  degree,  the  only  rational  policy  would 
have  been  to  regulate  the  system  of  enfran- 
chisement in  such  a  way  that  the  granting 
a  franchise  should  always  be  in  accordance 
with  the  law,  applicable  without  discrimina- 
tion, to  everybody,  other  things  being  equal, 
and  a  limited,  though  reasonable,  period  for 
its  initiation  granted  to  each  industry. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    175 

The  dangers  of  abuse  having  thus  been 
eliminated,  the  system  of  lawful  franchise 
would  have  continued  to  lend  the  most 
powerful  assistance  to  the  gigantic  work  of 
reconstruction.  That  its  abolition  was  not 
inspired  by  a  clear  perception  of  facts,  and 
farsightedness;  that  it  was  accomplished  only 
as  the  result  of  a  blind  doctrinarianism  or  a 
preconceived  desire  to  destroy  everything 
that  existed,  is  proved  by  the  numberless 
concessions  carrying  exemptions  from  taxes 
that  were  granted  by  the  government  founded 
upon  the  Constitution  of  Queretaro.  (See 
"Diario  Oficial  de  los  Estados  Unidos  Mexi- 
canos.") 

The  new  constitution  does  not  stop  at 
prohibiting  tax  exemptions  in  the  future.  It 
also  has  furnished  grounds  for  the  repudiation 
of  exemptions  granted  by  the  former  govern- 
ments, notwithstanding  that  by  readopting 
the  provisions  of  the  Constitution  of  1857  it 
confirms  the  principle  of  non-retroactivity, 
which  is  the  basis  for  the  stability  of  private 
rights;  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  those 
franchises  were  granted  by  legitimate  acts  of 
the  federal  or  state  legislatures.  In  their 
eagerness  to  destroy  any  and  every  fount  and 
source  of  the  economic  development  of  the 


176    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

Nation,  in  their  determination  to  attack 
capital  in  every  possible  form,  the  Federal  as 
well  as  the  State  Governments  have  availed 
themselves  of  Article  28  of  the  new  Constitution 
to  repudiate  with  impunity  exemptions  legally 
granted  by  previous  administrations. 

In  line  with  the  same  principles,  the  Consti- 
tution of  1917  destroys  at  one  blow  the 
charters  of  the  existing  banks  of  issue  with 
the  excuse  that  they  wished  to  establish  the 
so-called  "Banco  Unico  de  Emision,"  a 
single  bank  of  issue  under  the  control  of  the 
Government. 

After  deep  investigations  and  difficult  ne- 
gotiations with  the  "Banco  Nacional  de 
Mexico,"  a  corporation  which  at  the  time 
enjoyed  an  exclusive  franchise  for  issuing 
bank-notes,  the  administration  of  General 
Diaz  adopted  a  system  providing  for  a 
plurality  of  banks  of  issue,  and  by  the  banking 
law  of  May  19th,  1897,  it  authorized  the 
establishment  in  all  States  of  banks  of  issue 
upon  conditions  which  guaranteed  their  firm- 
ness and  stabiUty.  Corporations  alone  were 
qualified  to  do  a  banking  business.  Their 
authorized  capital,  at  least  one-half  of  which 
must  be  paid  up,  was  required  to  be  not  less 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    177 

than  one  million  pesos*  The  value  of  their 
notes  in  circulation  could  not  exceed  twice 
the  amount  of  their  metallic  reserves,  which 
consisted  of  the  gold  and  silver  stock  on  hand. 
The  banks  were  subject  to  the  supervision 
of  the  federal  government  and  also  to  certain 
restrictions  which  applied  to  the  nature  and 
extent  of  their  operations.  And  finally,  they 
were  granted  certain  special  judicial  facilities 
to  enforce  the  collection  of  their  loans. 

Under  the  terms  of  this  law,  which  granted 
certain  exemptions,  at  the  same  time  making 
favorable  tax  rates  for  the  first  bank  to  be 
established  in  every  State,  twenty  banks 
were  opened  in  different  parts  of  the  Republic, 
in  addition  to  the  banks  known  as  "Banco 
Nacional  de  Mexico,"  "Banco  de  Londres," 
"Banco  Minero"  and  perhaps  one  or  two 
others. 

Those  operating  in  commercial,  manufactur- 
ing or  agricultural  centers  of  importance, 
undoubtedly  lent  valuable  aid  to  the  progress 
of  those  regions  and  consequently  they  pros- 
pered. Such  were,  among  others,  the  banks 
of  Yucatan,  Vera  Cruz,  Jalisco,  Puebla,  Monte- 
rey, Durango,  Sinaloa,  Sonora,  and  Chihua- 

*The  minimum  authorized  capital  of  the  banks,  as  fixed  by  the  law  of 
1897,  was  lower  than  one  million  peiot,  to  which  sum  it  was  raised  by  the  law 
of  June  19th,  1908.     One  peto  is  equivalent  to  fifty  cents  of  American  money 


178    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

hua;  others  made  little  progress,  while  there 
were  one  or  two  which  were  forced  to  close 
their  doors  or  merge  with  some  other  bank. 

After  the  monetary  reform  of  1905  which 
created  the  gold  standard  and  at  the  same  time 
fixed  the  value  of  the  silver  peso,  limited  its 
coinage  and  continued  it  as  legal  tender,  it 
was  deemed  necessary  to  limit  the  circulation 
of  fiduciary  money.  Therefore,  after  the 
enactment  of  the  law  of  May  13th,  1905, 
which  forbade  for  four  years  the  opening  of 
new  banks,  the  term  was  extended  to  the 
year  19^2,  by  the  provisions  of  a  new  law 
dated  June  19th,  1908. 

Towards  the  end  of  1913  and  the  beginning 
of  1914,  the  Huerta  government  ordered  the 
banks  to  take  over  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  foreign  loan  which  European  bankers 
had  not  subscribed  to.  And  in  order  to 
enable  the  banks  to  use  their  gold  and  silver 
reserves  for  this  purpose,  it  decreed  that  in 
the  future,  bank  notes  would  be  accepted  as 
legal  tender  and  the  issues  could  reach  three 
times  the  value  of  their  metallic  reserves, 
plus  the  notes  of  other  banks  which  they 
might  have  in  their  possession. 

For  some  of  the  banks,  that  measure  was 
life-saving,  as  the  general  crisis  in  which  the 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    179 

country  was  involved  had  affected  them  and 
they  were  not  in  condition  to  redeem  their 
notes  on  presentation.  Others  would  not 
have  been  able  to  take  over  the  loan  forced 
upon  them  except  with  the  aid  of  the  new 
franchise.  There  were  on  y  a  few  that  pre- 
served the  old  proportion  between  their  re- 
serves and  the  value  of  their  notes  in  circula- 
tion. 

The  Carrancista  faction  saw  in  such  a 
situation  the  opportunity  to  seize  the  bank 
funds,  privately  by  bribes  backed  up  by 
threats,  and  officially  by  the  seizure  of  them. 

On  the  4th  of  January,  1914,  before  the 
Carrancista  mobs  had  gained  control  of  the 
Mexican  Republic,  and  before  they  had 
established  even  the  semblance  of  a  govern- 
ment, the  First  Chief  issued  his  decree 
number  15  excluding  from  the  legal  reserves 
of  the  banks  the  certificates  of  the  "  Comision 
Monetaria,"  which  were  redeemable  at  sight, 
since,  in  conformity  with  the  laws  of  December 
22nd,  1905,  and  May  18th,  1912,  they  were 
secured  by  deposits  of  gold  bullion,  foreign 
gold  coins,  or  silver  pesos.  The  decree  also 
excluded  from  the  legal  reserves  the  notes  of 
other  banks  of  issue. 

The  decree  of  September  29th,  1915,  issued 


180    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

by  the  same  First  Chief,  fixed  a  term  of  forty- 
five  days  in  which  the  aforementioned  banking 
concerns  were  to  readjust  the  circulation  of 
their  notes  so  that  the  amount  covered  by 
them  would  not  exceed  twice  that  of  their 
metallic  reserves. 

Finally,  by  its  circular  of  October  26th,  1915, 
the  Department  of  Finance  created  a  com- 
mission styled  "Comision  Reguladora  e  In- 
spectora  de  Instituciones  de  Credito, "  charged 
with  the  investigation  of  each  bank's  condition 
and  commissioned  to  report  as  to  the  advisa- 
bility of  allowing  them  to  continue  under  their 
present  charter.  A  man  who  had  confessed 
to,  and  received  sentence  for,  the  embezzle- 
ment of  funds  of  the  Banco  Nacional,  was 
appointed  as  one  of  the  members  of  the  above 
commission,  and  the  plundering  of  banks 
began. 

As  in  most  cases,  the  reports  rendered  by 
the  commission  were  adverse  to  the  banks, 
prominent  Carrancistas  and  high  officials  of 
the  administration  were  waited  upon  by 
representatives  of  the  banks,  pleaded  with, 
and  offered  large  sums  of  money.  The  out- 
come was  that  several  of  the  banks  were  able 
to  ward  off  their  threatened  closure. 

The   "Boletin  Financiero,"   a  commercial 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    181 

publication  of  the  City  of  Mexico,  in  its 
volume  covering  the  months  from  April,  1915, 
to  December,  1915,  publishes  the  reports  of 
Superintendent  Manero,  which  recommend 
the  forfeiture  of  the  charters  of  the  banks  of 
Coahuila,  Guerrero,  Hidalgo,  Queretaro,  Ta- 
maulipas,  Jalisco,  Aguascalientes,  Guana- 
juato, Morelos  and  Durango,  and  the  Banco 
Oriental  de  Puebla.  The  same  paper  states 
that  the  banking  commission  above  mentioned 
has  already  declared  the  forfeiture  of  the 
charters  of  the  banks  of  Guerrero,  Hidalgo, 
Queretaro,  Coahuila,  San  Luis  Potosi,  the 
Mexican  Bank  of  the  Peninsula,  the  Banco 
Oriental  de  Puebla.  In  the  same  volume, 
the  Boletin  Financiero  publishes  the  reports 
of  superintendent  Manero  recommending  the 
continuance  of  the  charters  of  the  following 
banks:  Banco  Nacional  de  Mexico,  Banco  de 
Londres  y  Mexico,  Banco  de  Zacatecas,  and 
Banco  del  Estado  de  Mexico.  It  does  not 
state  which  charters  were  definitely  declared 
forfeited  by  the  Department  of  Finance,  but 
according  to  circulars  number  71  and  number 
72,  of  September  20th,  1916,  published  in  the 
third  volume  of  the  same  bulletin,  the  Banco 
Nacional  de  Mexico,  the  Banco  de  Londres  y 
Mexico,  and  all  the  State  banks  except  those  of 


182    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

Coahuila  and  Durango  were  still  in  operation 
on  that  date,  which  undoubtedly  was  due 
to  the  fact  that  no  declarations  of  forfeiture 
had  been  enforced.  According  to  reports  of 
the  superintendent  of  banks,  the  declarations 
of  forfeiture  recommended  by  him  were  based 
strictly  on  the  provisions  of  the  decrees  of 
September  29th,  1915.  The  fact  that  the 
charters  were  still  in  force  at  the  time  of  the 
issuance  of  the  circular,  indicates  that  the 
decree  was  not  issued  with  the  sincere  purpose 
of  having  it  enforced,  but  rather  with  the  in- 
tention of  making  it  an  instrument  of  extor- 
tion and  creating  an  opening  for  bribery. 

The  gold  vein  thus  opened  up  was  too 
valuable  not  to  be  exploited.  After  the  lapse 
of  one  year,  the  First  Chief  issued  a  new 
decree  which  stated  that  within  the  term  of 
three  months,  all  banks  must  reduce  the 
amount  covered  by  their  outstanding  notes 
to  a  sum  not  exceeding  the  value  of  their 
metallic  reserve,  under  penalty  of  a  forfeiture 
of  their  charters  and  seizure  of  their  assets  by 
special  Commissions  known  as  "consejos  de 
Incautacion, "  in  case  of  failure  to  comply 
with  the  terms  of  the  decree. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  the  Carran- 
cistas  claimed  that  this  action  was  taken  be- 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    183 

cause  the  exemptions  granted  to  the  banks  of 
issue  created  hateful  monopoHes  and  exclusive 
privileges.  Such  an  argument  was  nothing 
but  shameless  sophistry. 

The  banks  established  in  Mexico — with  the 
exception  of  the  Banco  Nacional  and  the 
Banco  de  Londres,  which  were  conducted 
according  to  prior  contracts — ^had  been  created 
by  virtue  of  the  banking  law,  passed  in  1897, 
in  conformity  with  a  general  basis  outlined 
for  that  purpose  by  the  Federal  Congress. 
In  proof  of  the  assertion  that  they  were  not  a 
monopoly,  witness  the  fact  that  twenty-two 
banks  of  issue  operated  independently;  nor 
did  their  charters  give  them  exclusive  privil- 
eges, since  according  to  the  law,  any  persons 
who  could  fulfill  the  required  conditions  of 
solvency  and  security  would  be  able  to  obtain 
the  respective  charter.  Moreover,  the  First 
Chief's  decree  of  September  29th,  1915,  and 
others  previous  to  it,  had  recognized  the 
legality  of  the  banking  law  of  1897.  Strictly 
speaking,  they  could  have  held  as  objection- 
able the  laws  of  1905  and  1908  above  mention- 
ed, which  had  limited  to  the  already  existing 
banks  the  franchise  as  banks  of  issue  and 
the  object  of  which  was  to  maintain  the 
equilibrium  of  the  monetary  system  adopted 


184    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

in  1905;  they  could  also  have  objected  to  the 
regulations  of  the  banking  law  which  allowed 
the  banks  special  judicial  facilities  to  enforce 
the  collection  of  their  loans,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  these  facilities  had  in  view  the 
strengthening  of  the  financial  status  of  the 
banks. 

All  the  decrees  of  the  First  Chief  were 
therefore  arbitrary.  They  altered  pre-exist- 
ing laws  and  thereby  impaired  vested  rights; 
and  furthermore,  if  the  purpose  of  the  First 
Chief  was  to  abolish  privileges  which  he 
qualified  as  exclusive,  he  should  have  limited 
himself  to  withdrawing  from  the  institutions 
of  credit  the  special  judicial  facilities  granted 
them,  and  to  decreeing  that  in  the  future  new 
charters  would  continue  to  be  granted,  on 
equal  terms,  to  all  who  could  comply  with 
the  requirements  of  the  law  of  1897. 

Without  considering  the  legality  of  his 
action,  in  support  of  which  no  possible  argu- 
ment could  be  deduced,  the  last  decree  of 
the  First  Chief  was  absurd  from  the  economic 
point  of  view.  Owing  to  the  unlimited  issu- 
ance of  government  fiat  money,  the  silver 
pesos  and  gold  pieces  had  disappeared  and 
there  was  in  circulation  nothing  but  paper 
money,   which   had   become   very   much   de- 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    185 

predated  by  that  time,  and  bank  notes,  which 
on  the  average  were  quoted  at  something 
between  30  per  cent  and  40  per  cent  of  their 
face  value  in  National  gold.  Taking  those 
notes  off  the  market,  leaving  only  the  paper 
money,  of  necessity  rendered  the  monetary 
crisis  more  serious.  It  placed  an  insurmount- 
able obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  resumption  of 
the  more  or  less  paralyzed  industries  of  the 
country,  thereby  bringing  the  poorer  classes 
to  want,  since  the  cost  of  articles  of  prime 
necessity  had  risen  with  gigantic  strides. 

However,  the  de  facto  government  troubled 
itself  about  everything  except  what  might  en- 
courage the  work  of  reconstruction,  or,  at 
least,  favor  conservation  of  resources.  The 
chief  ambition  was  to  get  the  metallic  re- 
serves of  the  banks  in  order  to  meet  the  needs 
of  the  administration,  but  more  particularly 
so  that  the  insatiable  voracity  of  the  military 
chiefs  and  political  leeches  might  be  satisfied. 

Some  of  the  banks  were  not  able,  and  others 
probably  did  not  wish  to  redeem  their  out- 
standing notes,  as  ordered  by  the  First  Chief 
in  violation  of  the  terms  of  their  franchises. 
Therefore,  the  time  allowed  them  having 
expired,  before  they  had  recalled  their  surplus 
notes  in  circulation,  the  de  facto  government 


186    Carranza  cmdjlis  Bolshevik  Regime 

proceeded  to  seize  the  funds  of  the  banks, 
resorting  to   all   kinds   of  violent  measures. 

In  the  Presidential  message  read  to  Congress 
September  15th,  1917,  which  treated  of  the 
"pre-constitutional"  period,  the  following  is 
stated : 

"The  Constitutionalist  government,  com- 
pelled by  circumstances,  has  found  it  necessary 
to  take  from  all  the  banks  approximately 
twenty  millions  for  the  affairs  of  the  govern- 
ment. " 

And  in  the  Presidential  message  of  Sep- 
tember 1st,  1918,  also  presented  to  Congress, 
we  read  as  follows:  "As  is  generally  known, 
the  pre-constitutional  government  first,  and 
later  the  constitutional,  took"  (that  is  just 
the  word,  took,  and  took  by  force),  "as  a 
loan  from  the  banks  of  issue  their  metallic 
stock  on  hand  having  an  approximate  value 
of  $54,000,000." 

Unofficial  data  makes  the  amount  larger 
than  that  quoted  by  the  First  Chief.  Except- 
ing those  which  transferred  their  funds  to 
the  United  States  before  the  plunder  began, 
all  the  banks  are  at  present  drained  of  gold 
and  silver;  and  we  must  remember  that  the 
amount  of  this  stock  in  their  vaults  on  March 
31st,  1915,  according  to  balances  published 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    187 

in  the  Boletin  Financiero  of  September  11th, 
1915,  reached  the  sum  of  $85,596,183.01. 

In  September  of  1916,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  Luis  Cabrera,  told  the  American 
Commissioners  in  the  conferences  of  New 
London  that  the  measures  taken  were  "the 
result  of  a  policy  which  the  Carranza  Govern- 
ment felt  had  been  carried  on  by  certain  of  the 
Mexican  banks  to  depreciate  the  government 
currency,  that  these  banks  were  in  fact  the 
money  trust  of  Mexico,  and  that  the  Govern- 
ment was  anxious  to  make  these  banks  more 
loyal  to  the  purposes  for  which  they  were 
instituted"  .  .  .  "These  banks",  he  added, 
"were  the  chief  agencies  used  for  the  depre- 
ciation of  the  paper  currency,  and  this  was 
hostile  to  the  welfare  of  the  country.  The 
Government  of  Mexico  is  just  contemplating, 
when  these  banks  close  permanently,  the 
establishment  of  a  national  banking  system 
similar  to  that  in  the  United  States,  the 
foundation  for  which  already  exists  in  the 
newly  established  monetary  commission." 
(Official  bulletin  published  in  the  Boston 
Transcript,  September  20th,  1916). 

The  voracity  and  spirit  of  destruction  of 
the  Carrancista  caste  called  for  the  demolition 
of  the  banks  even  though  there  might  not  be 


188    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

anything  to  substitute  for  them  immediately. 
However,  so  as  to  give  apparent  justification 
to  their  plan,  they  announced  their  intention 
of  creating  the  "Banco  Unico  de  Emision" 
(a  single  bank  of  issue). 

When  the  draft  of  the  new  Constitution 
prepared  by  the  First  Chief  was  discussed 
in  Queretaro,  the  Assistant  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  proposed  that  in  Article  28  there 
should  be  included  a  clause  eliminating  once 
and  for  all  the  possibility  of  the  continuance 
of  the  existing  banks  of  issue.  By  this 
measure  the  seizures  already  made  were 
sanctioned;  and  the  plunder  of  the  bank 
vaults  carried  on  by  the  pre-constitutional 
government  was  included  in  the  category — 
what  mockery! — of  constitutional  rights. 

The  minutes  of  the  Assembly  of  Queretaro 
reveal  how  that  ignorant  and  passionate  body 
regarded  the  problems  raised  by  so  far- 
reaching  a  question. 

The  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
regards  the  theory  of  a  single  bank  of  issue 
as  dogma:  "a  fact  that  is  not  under  discussion 
anywhere,"  he  says,  "is,  that  there  should  be 
but  one  bank  of  issue  because  it  is  a  principle 
adopted  many  years  ago  by  the  science  of 
political    economy.     In    all    the    more    pro- 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    189 

gressive  countries,  the  principle  that  there 
should  be  but  one  bank  authorized  to  issue 
bank  notes  has  been  gaining  more  and  more 
ground  from  day  to  day."  (Diario  de  los 
Debates,  Vol.  II,  p.  368). 

From  the  same  so-called  dogma,  the  Assist- 
ant Secretary  also  deduces  that  "that  monop- 
oly should  be  in  the  hands  of  the  government 
from  the  moment  that  it  is  empowered  to 
coin  and  issue  the  money  of  the  country." 
(Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  II,  p.  368). 

Naturally,  since  it  is  a  "dogma,"  it  admits 
of  no  discussion.  In  vain  does  Congressman 
Lizardi  twice  bring  to  the  attention  of  the 
Assembly  the  fact  that  it  has  absolutely  no 
preparation  for  solving  the  question,  that  it 
does  not  have  in  its  possession  the  necessary 
statistical  data.  (Diario  de  los  Debates, 
Vol.  II,  pp.  365,  395). 

Congressman  Necio,  member  of  the  Com- 
mission, considers  it  obvious  that  the  new 
bank  "is  going  to  be  formed  with  money 
belonging  to  the  Federal  Government." 
(Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  II,  p.  362). 
Congressman  Zavala  declares  that  "statistics 
relative  to  economic  questions  have  a  very 
insignificant  and  doubtful  value."  (Diario 
de  los  Debates,  Vol  II,  p.  392).     The  Assist- 


190    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

ant  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  from  his  lofty 
pedestal  says,  "the  intellectual  level  of  this 
Constituent  Congress,  if  not  superior,  is 
not,  I  think,  inferior  to  that  of  the  Congress 
which  will  follow;  nor  do  I  think  it  would  be 
expedient  to  postpone  indefinitely  the  solution 
of  this  problem  just  because  the  Chamber  is 
not  in  condition  to  solve  economic  questions, 
for  that  would  be  absurd  .  .  .  The  Con- 
stituent Congress  would  commit  a  grave  error 
if  it  left  that  question  without  solution  for 
the  next  Congress,  because  undoubtedly  the 
existing  banks  of  issue  will  attempt  to  defend 
their  interests  at  all  hazards  and  to  that  end 
will  exert  vigorous  efforts  in  the  next  Con- 
gress." (Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  II,  p. 
368). 

To  dogma  is  added  passion.  On  this 
occasion  it  is  the  turn  of  Congressman 
Mugica,  President  of  the  Reporting  Com- 
mittee, to  pour  the  acrimonious  vitriol.  "  My 
ideas,"  he  exclaims,  "are  entirely  radical; 
I  do  not  know  whether  they  are  good  or  bad; 
my  ideas  were  these:  that  the  government, 
taking  advantage  of  the  law  in  force,  should 
compel  the  banks  to  declare  themselves  in 
liquidation,  for  the  reason  that  it  was  public 
and  notorious  that  the  strongest  banks  of  the 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    191 

nation  were  bankrupt  owing  to  the  illegal 
issues  which  they  had  been  obliged  to  make 
by  the  government  of  Huerta ;  that  these  banks 
being  in  a  state  of  liquidation,  bankruptcy 
would  follow  necessarily  and  inevitably;  that, 
in  my  opinion,  the  government  in  order  to 
guarantee  private  interests  ought  in  that 
case  to  assume  the  outstanding  credits  of 
the  banks,  taking  over  their  assets  which  were 
national  property  mortgaged  in  their  favor, 
and  in  this  way  face  the  situation.  The 
banks  should  have  disappeared  at  the  very 
moment  in  which  we  took  the  Capital  of 
the  Republic  .  .  .  Not  one  of  the  Congress- 
men will  doubt  that  as  soon  as  the  banks' 
condition  had  been  strengthened  by  closing 
them,  as  soon  as  they  had  redeemed  much 
of  the  paper  issued,  they  were  in  condition 
to  wage  war  against  the  Constituent  Govern- 
ment and  they  did  wage  it  .  .  .  I  see,  there- 
fore, in  the  creation  of  this  bank  controlled 
by  the  government,  a  very  immediate  result: 
the  death  of  the  rest  of  the  banks,  which  are 
the  sworn  enemies  of  the  Mexican  people; 
because  we  have  seen  all  banks  operating  in 
the  Republic,  not  alone  when  they  were 
fighting  the  Revolution,  but  also  when  they 
favored  the  landowners,  enter  into  disastrous 


192    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

operations  and  cause  the  ruin  of  citizens  in  a 
few  months  .  .  .  And  are  we  going  to  let 
them  stand?  No,  gentlemen,  let  us  establish 
at  once  in  the  constitution,  the  Bank  of  the 
State,  which  will  benefit  the  Nation,  and  which 
above  all,  will  prevent  deals  from  being  hatch- 
ed by  the  government  oflScials  which  might 
be  beneficial  to  the  bankers  and  detrimental 
to  the  Nation.  (Applause.) "  (Diario  de  los 
Debates,  Vol.  II,  pp.  372,  373). 

Upon  such  arguments  rested  the  provisions 
of  Article  28  of  the  Constitution  of  Queretaro 
upon  authorizing  "the  issuing  of  notes  by  a 
single  bank,  to  be  controlled  by  the  Federal 
Government. " 

And  the  organization  of  the  "Banco  Unico" 
as  provided  for  in  the  Carrancista  constitution, 
was  outlined  in  the  draft  submitted  more 
than  two  years  ago  by  the  Executive  of  the 
Federal  Congress  and  which  later  on  had  to  be 
withdrawn. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  such  a  bank 
does  not  exist  because  the  Government  has 
not  the  money  to  establish  it;  because  the 
Government  has  not  the  credit  necessary  to 
make  its  stock  marketable;  because  the 
Government,  which  has  issued  and  repudiated 
more  than  a  billion  pesos  in  paper  money. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    193 

will  feel  no  scruples  against  once  more  up- 
holding such  questionable  ethics,  once  the 
"Banco  Unico  de  Emision"  shall  have  been 
launched. 

If  a  constructive  spirit  had  prompted  the 
conception  of  this  idea,  the  best  use  would 
have  been  made  of  the  money,  assets  and 
credits  of  the  existing  banks  so  as  to  re- 
organize the  banking  system  in  the  Mexican 
Republic  under  a  well  thought-out  plan  in 
accordance  with  the  teachings  of  the  science 
of  political  economy,  free  from  all  passion  and 
rapacity;  those  institutions  would  not  have 
been  destroyed  before  their  successors  had 
been  created. 

But,  in  this  as  in  almost  all  other  matters, 
the  military  caste  in  control  of  the  Mexican 
Government  has  been  inspired  only  by  hatred 
and  rapacity  and  eagerness  for  destruction. 

It  is  now  more  than  three  years  since  the 
country  has  had  paper  circulation;  for  three 
years  it  has  existed  with  only  metallic  circu- 
lation; the  former  alone  represented  in  bank- 
notes $227,555,799 .  75  up  to  the  31st  of  March, 
1915,  and  the  latter,  undoubtedly  for  the 
same  period,  was  not  less  than  80  per  cent  of 
that  figure. 

Now,  however,  all  the  transactions^of  this 


194    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

extensive  country  with  fifteen  million  in- 
habitants can  be  carried  on  only  with  coined 
money,  the  stock  of  which  hardly  reaches  a 
hundred  millions  of  pesos;  money  is  not  to  be 
had  for  the  initiation  of  new  enterprises,  nor 
even  to  further  the  continuance  or  mainten- 
ance of  those  already  existing;  the  rate  of 
interest  rises  to  two,  three,  and  even  six  per 
cent,  per  month  on  good  collateral  securities; 
personal  credit  has  ceased  to  exist  and  anaemia 
aflPects  to  a  super-acute  degree  the  social  body. 


CHAPTER  XV 

Democracy  is  not  in  itself  an  end;  its 
objective  is  not  that  all  men  should  participate 
in  public  matters;  it  proclaims  the  co-operation 
of  the  greatest  number,  as  the  most  eflFective 
means  of  procuring  the  common  welfare  with 
the  maximum  of  intensity  and  inclusiveness. 

Now,  then,  any  one  not  able  to  understand 
party  platforms  although  thefee  may  be  the 
very  simplest  and  most  elementary  in  their 
conception;  any  one  not  able  to  form  a  judg- 
ment upon  the  fitne^  of  the  men  who  would 
carry  out  those  platforms,  neither  has  he  any 
interest  in  public  matters  nor  would  his 
participation  in  them  contribute  anything  to 
the  social  welfare. 

In  the  realm  of  democracy,  if  the  object  of 
the  institutions  is  taken  into  consideration, 
it  is  necessary  for  man  to  be  capable  of  judging — 
even  though  his  judgment  does  not  reach 
remote  causes — in  order  that  he  may  deserve 
to  collaborate  in  the  management  of  the 
political  aflfairs  of  his  country. 

Public  opinion  keeps  up  the  vigor  of  demo- 


196    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

cratic  proceedings  because  it  expresses  itself 
periodically  by  means  of  the  elections,  showing 
the  presence  or  lack  of  confidence  in  the  men  to 
whom  it  has  delegated  the  exercise  of  sover- 
eignty; but  more,  very  much  more,  than  by 
this  intermittent  action,  public  opinion  repre- 
sents the  soul  of  democracy  by  its  constant 
and  uninterrupted  vigilance  over  the  conduct 
of  the  oflScials,  now  enlightening  them,  now 
approving  public  management,  now  censuring 
it  according  as  it  satisfies  the  aims,  aspirations 
and  needs  of  the  nation  or  fails  to  do  so. 

When  public  opinion  does  not  express  itself 
in  the  elections,  but  more  than  that  when  it 
fails  to  make  its  voice  heard  at  all  times  with 
relation  to  every  important  act  of  the  adminis- 
tration, the  interchange  of  ideas  between 
the  people  and  their  representatives  insensibly 
diminishes;  the  ties  of  dependence  and  re- 
sponsibility relax  by  degrees,  and,  if  the 
silence  is  prolonged,  the  government  comes 
to  feel  independent,  irresponsible,  infallible, 
omnipotent. 

Democracy  then  becomes  a  chimera;  auto- 
cracy, clad  in  false  garments,  is  the  reality; 
the  government  is  the  master,  not  the  servant; 
it  makes  the  elections,  instead  of  the  elections 
making  it. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    197 

The  formula  of  the  poHtical  equation  for 
obtaining  a  representative  government,  the 
only  stable  and  at  the  same  time  progressive 
one,  is  very  simple :  suffrage  must  be  co-extensive 
with  judgment,  in  the  same  way  that  action  is 
co-relative  with  the  force  which  moves  it. 

Suffrage  restricted  to  the  portion  of  the 
population  able  to  read  and  write,  regardless 
of  social  class  or  race  would,  therefore,  have 
been  the  true  solution  for  the  problems  of 
the    incipient    Mexican    democracy. 

The  electoral  machine  placed  in  the  hands 
best  prepared  to  utilize  it  fitly  in  the  work  of 
social  welfare;  the  civic  weapon  handed  to  an 
active  citizen  for  supporting  within  the  govern- 
ment its  convictions;  the  creation  of  an  open 
mesocracy  conscious  of  its  strength,  jealous 
of  its  political  rights,  assiduous  in  the  exercise 
of  these;  grouping  the  aims  directing  national 
poUcy  into  organized  parties  with  leaders  who 
should  be  their  representatives  and  not  their 
bosses;  strife  within  the  institutions  so  as  to 
carry  through  those  aims  in  place  of  armed 
strife  against  the  institutions  themselves; 
the  influence  of  the  parties,  gradually  ex- 
pansive, over  the  unlearned  classes,  aimed 
always  at  increasing  the  forces  in  action; 
and,  consequently,  the  interest  of  the  political 


198    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

parties  to  push  national  education  forward;  in 
one  word,  potential  democracy,  restricted  in 
number,  though  entirely  open  to  indefinite 
growth,  to  the  incorporation  of  new  collabora- 
tors; such  would  have  been  the  development 
of  the  Mexican  nation,  if,  in  the  matter  of 
suffrage,  the  institutions  had  responded  to 
reality. 

But  our  constituents  of  1857  embroidered 
Utopian  dreams.  From  man  as  a  social  unit 
they  passed  to  man  as  a  political  unit,  from 
the  undeniable  right  of  living  within  the  in- 
stitutions they  deduced  in  favor  of  the  individ- 
ual the  privilege  of  governing  himself;  from 
equality  as  a  condition  for  individual  progress, 
they  rushed  even  to  considering  that  progress 
realized;  and,  imitating  the  example  of  other 
countries  of  a  superior  homogeneous  culture, 
of  an  aptitude  already  well  experimented  with 
in  their  own  government,  they  proclaimed 
universal  suffrage,  and,  what  is  worse,  compli- 
cated it  with  the  indirect  ballot. 

The  result  of  this  error  has  been  transcen- 
dental; its  effects  were  seen  from  the  very 
moment  that,  the  period  of  French  inter- 
vention having  terminated  and  the  Empire  of 
Maximilian  having  fallen,  the  republican 
system  again  operated  in  principle  throughout 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    199 

the  country. 

The  masses  did  not  rush  to  the  polls,  the 
educated  minority  went  to  them;  but  the 
government,  with  all  the  civil  and  military 
personnel  at  its  service,  assisted  by  the  local 
authorities,  using  the  resources  and  the  organi- 
zation of  the  administrative  machine  and 
taking  the  greatest  possible  advantage  of  the 
waste  of  strength  involved  by  the  indirect 
ballot,  dominated  in  the  ballot  boxes,  at  the 
polls,  and  in  the  electoral  colleges,  and  the 
independent  party  would  infallibly  lose  the 
elections.  Dictatorship  or  revolution  were 
the  only  alternatives.  Such  has  been  our 
history. 

Parallel  with  a  rational  conception  of 
suflFrage,  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press 
is  indispensable.  The  constituents  of  1857 
considered  that  liberty  well  guaranteed  by 
means  of  trial  by  jury  against  any  offenses 
of  the  press;  but  the  policy  of  the  Diaz 
faction  suppressed  it  during  the  administration 
of  General  Gonzalez,  and  since  then  the  press 
stopped  being  the  free  organ  of  public  opinion, 
and  as  a  result,  this  opinion  was  no  longer 
able  to  give  strength  or  support  to  honest  and 
fit  oflScials  nor  could  it  be  a  check  to  incompet- 
ency or  corruptness. 


200    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

Is  it  possible  to  cite  in  favor  of  the  Constitu- 
tion of  Queretaro  adequate  reforms  relative 
to  this  matter? 

In  the  Mexican  nation  there  are  funda- 
mentally two  classes  incapable  of  forming 
judgments  upon  public  affairs,  because  they 
are  lacking  in  knowledge  as  well  as  in  interest : 
those  who  have  not  yet  learned  the  Spanish 
language  and  those  who  are  illiterate. 

Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  lives  our 
civilized  life;  neither  the  one  nor  the  other 
imderstands  its  workings,  the  intimate  and 
intricate  individual  social  relations,  and  the 
rights  and  duties  of  a  citizen,  of  the  public 
power,  and  its  agents.  If  a  pure  democracy 
were  possible  in  modern  commonwealths  in- 
stead of  a  representative  one,  would  the 
adherents  of  universal  suffrage  consent  to 
having  this  enormous  mass  of  ignorant  people 
dictate  the  constitution,  draw  up  the  laws, 
manage  the  public  treasury,  outline  the  course 
of  our  agricultural,  industrial  and  commercial 
development  and  formulate  the  canons  of 
our  public  and  private  morals? 

Any  one  who  proposed  so  glaring  an  absurd- 
ity would  be  thought  stupid  and  senseless. 

Now  the  electoral  prerogative  is  nothing 
but  a  substitute  for  the  direct  exercise  of 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    201 

sovereignty.  In  the  sphere  of  principles, 
it  is  identical;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  although  at 
first  thought  the  elections  seem  to  simplify 
the  process,  they  do  not,  for  voters  must  of 
necessity  consider  party  platforms. 

To  leave  to  the  individual  and  uninfluenced 
judgment  of  the  masses  that  selection,  is  not 
feasible.  In  the  great  democracies  composed 
of  civilized  men,  such  a  system  is  not  in 
practice,  but  rather  the  vote  is  organized  by 
means  of  parties. 

But  the  existence  of  parties  implies  pro- 
grams of  government  and  well-defined  policies, 
so  that  through  the  election  of  representatives 
we  again  face  the  same  question  relating  to 
the  direct  exercise  of  sovereignty. 

Political  parties,  when  they  work  with 
intelligent  masses,  seek  to  appeal  to  reason. 
When  they  work  with  unintelligent  masses, 
they  do  not  seek  to  convince.  It  is  to  their 
interest  to  incite  passions;  demagogy  then 
takes  the  field. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  at  the  time  the 
Carrancista  faction  announced  its  intention 
to  reform  the  Constitution  of  1857  it  gave  as 
a  reason  the  necessity  of  making  its  precepts 
practical  and  feasible,  it  should  have  required 
as  a  first  condition  for  the  exercise  of  citizen- 


202    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

ship  a  knowledge  of  the  national  language 
and  the  ability  to  read  and  write. 

Carranza  well  knew  that  without  such  a 
restriction,  the  germs  of  demagogy  or  those 
of  dictatorship,  nourished  by  clericalism,  would 
have  continued  to  be  cultivated  in  Mexico 
under  the  cloak  of  democracy;  but  in  this 
instance,  as  in  all  similar  instances,  during 
his  revolutionary  period,  it  was  not  patriotic 
fervor  which  guided  Carranza;  it  was  not  the 
sincere  and  firm  determination  to  solve  once 
and  for  all  the  eternal  problems  originating 
in  the  antithesis  between  nominalism  and 
realism  of  institutions,  but,  rather,  to  attract 
to  himself  the  roused  populace  and  insure  his 
next  election  even  though  it  were  by  ignoble 
tricks    and    misrepresentations. 

Carranza  acknowledged  that  "suflFrage,  be- 
ing a  function  essentially  collective,  inasmuch 
as  it  is  the  indispensable  condition  for  the 
exercise  of  sovereignty,  should  be  granted  to 
all  the  members  of  the  body  social  who  may 
understand  the  interest  and  the  value  of  that 
most  lofty  function. 

"We  would,  therefore,  be  justified  in  con- 
cluding that  the  electoral  privilege  should  be 
granted  only  to  those  individuals  who  may 
have  full  consciousness  of  its  lofty  end.     This 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    203 

would,  naturally,  exclude  all  those  who  by 
their  ignorance,  their  carelessness,  or  in- 
diflFerence,  are  incapable  of  discharging  this 
duty  worthily,  co-operating  in  a  spontaneous 
and  eflScient  manner  with  the  government  of 
the  people,  by  the  people."  (Exposition  of 
Motives,  joined  to  the  project  of  the  Consti- 
tution). 

But  the  same  First  Chief  declared  that  "as 
it  is  the  ignorant  classes  who  have  suffered 
most  because  cruel  despotism  and  insatiable 
exploitation  in  all  their  violence  have  weighed 
upon  them  particularly,  it  would  be,  I  shall 
not  say  a  simple  inconsequence,  but  an  un- 
pardonable fraud,  to  take  away  from  them 
today  what  they  have  gained  previously. 

"The  government  under  my  charge,  there- 
fore, considers  that  it  would  be  impolitic  and 
inopportune  at  this  moment  after  a  great 
popular  revolution,  to  restrict  the  suffrage, 
exacting  for  it  the  one  condition  which  can 
rationally  be  required,  that  is,  that  all  citizens 
have  a  sufficient  elementary  education  to 
recognize  the  importance  of  the  right  to  vote 
and  discharge  it  under  conditions  fruitful  to 
society. "     (Ibidem) . 

And  the  Reporting  Committee  in  the 
Assembly  of  Queretaro,  not  wishing  to  fall 


204    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

behind,  asserted  that  "The  defense  of  the 
principle  of  the  restriction  of  suffrage  is  very 
wisely  made  in  the  report  of  the  First  Chief. 
The  moral  qualities  of  the  ethnical  groups 
dominating  the  country  by  their  numbers, 
justifies  the  theory  of  restricted  suffrage; 
but  political  reasons  prevent  this  doctrine 
from  being  put  into  practice  at  the  present 
time."  (Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  II, 
p.    559). 

In  this  way  did  the  Assembly  of  Queretaro 
with  opportunist  politics  allow  imiversal  suf- 
frage to  stand  and  with  it  the  seed  of  autocracy 
alternating  with  demagogy. 

However,  it  is  but  just  to  state  in  its  favor, 
that  the  Constitution  of  Queretaro,  besides 
endorsing  the  system  of  direct  suffrage  sanc- 
tioned since  1912,  declares  that  this  prerog- 
ative shall  be  taken  away  from  any  remiss  or 
neghgent  citizen  who  does  not  fulfill  his  civic 
duties  such  as  reporting  to  the  census  office, 
registering  at  the  polls,  enrolling  in  the 
National  Guard,  casting  his  ballot,  discharg- 
ing his  electoral  duties  and  serving  on  juries. 

This  innovation,  uncensurable  in  its  motives, 
may  be  of  transcendental  good  in  the  future; 
for  if  there  should  be  enacted  statutes  to 
provide  that  the  suspension  of  the  suffrage 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    205 

prerogative  must  continue  automatically  after 
the  first  year  referred  to  by  the  constitution, 
so  long  as  the  citizen  continues  at  fault  or 
does  not  seek  restoration  of  his  political 
prerogatives,  the  end  would  be  that  all  those 
who  lacked  the  will  or  knowledge  to  reap  the 
benefit  of  so  valuable  a  prerogative  would  be 
eliminated. 

Concerning  what  refers  to  liberty  of  the 
press,  the  debates  in  the  Assembly  of  Quere- 
taro  showed  only  a  spirit  of  caste. 

TMien  the  Reporting  Committee  proposed 
an  its  draft  of  Article  7  the  re-establishment 
of  trial  by  jury  for  offenses  by  the  press,  the 
radicals  opposed  it  according  to  the  words  of 
Congressman  Calderon,  because  trial  by  jury 
was  a  "privilege  in  favor  not  of  the  liberal 
newspaper  man,  but  rather  of  the  enemies  of 
tlie  Revolution.  The  liberal  journalist  can 
always  count  in  his  favor  on  the  influence  of 
his  political  party,  on  the  power  of  the  liberal 
press,  and  on  the  writ  of  "amparo"  in  order 
to  be  successful  in  any  process. 

"The  useless  special  jurisdiction  of  which  I 
speak,  is  sought  only  by  the  reactionaries  to 
assure  the  impunity  of  press  offenses.  The 
jury,  in  an  environment  loyal  (hostile?)  to 
constitutionalism,  as  is  the  general  environ- 


206    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

ment,  is  incapable  of  rendering  justice;  if  it 
did,  it  would  be  stoned  to  death  by  the  excit- 
able multitude  injBuenced  by  the  opposition 
press,  as  has  already  happened.  The  per- 
verse journalists,  who  would  form  a  legion  for 
the  aid  of  this  same  jury  in  order  to  be 
acquitted,  would  take  advantage  of  the  enor- 
mous moral  pressure  which  can  weight  down 
the  jury."  (Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  I, 
pp.  582-3). 

The  Assembly  finally  defeated  that  part  of 
Article  7  by  the  overwhelming  majority  of 
101  votes. 

When  trial  by  jury  again  came  up  for 
discussion  with  the  draft  of  Section  VI, 
Article  20,  Marchoro  Narvaez  summarized 
the  same  oppressive  standard  in  the  following 
words:  "The  present  revolution  is  not  yet 
popular  in  Mexico,  The  majority  of  the 
people  are  still  against  the  revolution;  the 
higher  classes,  the  middle  classes  to  a  great 
extent,  and  the  old  intellectual  class,  are 
against  the  revolution;  the  working  classes 
of  a  certain  kind,  private  employees,  those  who 
make  up  the  principal  part  of  the  middle 
class  are  against  the  revolution;  we  are  still  in 
the  minority,  .  .  .  "  "  .  .  .Now,  six 
months  after  the  establishment  of  the  consti- 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    207 

tutionalist  regime,  there  will  be  many  re- 
actionary newspapers,  enemies  of  the  consti- 
tutionalist cause.  ...""...  And 
then  we  shall  have  no  way  of  repressing  them, 
why?  Because  the  jury  will  come  from 
those  same  classes,  from  those  same  readers, 
enemies,  reactionaries.  From  there  the  jury 
will  be  drawn."  "...  And  if  any 
newspaper  men  come  to  ask  for  guaran- 
tees, I  shall  tell  them,  *wait,  journalists,  wait, 
you  are  not  now  in  the  hands  of  enemies,  no 
one  will  judge  you,  no  one  will  censure  you. 
If  at  some  time  your  efforts  are  needed  to 
save  liberty,  do  not  then  come  to  ask  for 
guarantees;  come  to  offer  yourselves  as  vic- 
tims, just  as  the  soldier  who  goes  to  campaign 
does  not  ask  to  be  given  a  cuirass  and  to  be 
protected  behind  a  wall;  so  you,  do  not  ask 
for  the  jury,  because  now  it  would  be  a  guaranty 
only  for  your  very  enemies.^'  (Ibidem,  Vol. 
II,  pp.   71,   72). 

If  the  Assembly  finally  approved  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  jury  system  by  the  scant 
majority  of  eighty-four  to  seventy  votes,  it 
was  merely  because  it  found  no  other  way  of 
assuring  liberty  of  the  press  to  their  political 
colleagues  while  at  the  same  time  denying  it 
to  the  opponents  of  the  Carrancista  revolution. 


208    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

After  what  we  have  quoted  in  preceding 
lines,  it  will  seem  strange  to  no  one  that  the 
exercise  of  the  vote  as  well  as  the  freedom  of 
the  press  should  have  been  and  continue  to 
be  a  privilege  of  the  Carrancista  caste  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  other  social  classes. 

In  the  elections  for  the  Presidency,  the 
Federal  Congress,  Governorships  and  State 
Legislatures,  no  candidates  except  those  of 
Carrancista  affiliations  have  been  allowed  to 
figure  nor  have  any  independent  political 
parties  been  permitted  to  organize. 

There  has  been  rivalry  at  the  polls,  but  it 
has  always  been  among  members  of  the  same 
caste.  Frequently,  this  rivalry  has  moved  the 
crowds  to  riot  and  brought  about  the  simultan- 
eous installation  of  two  legislatures  and  two 
governors  for  a  single  state,  as  in  the  case  of 
Tamaulipas,  Tlaxcala,  Tabasco,  and  San  Luis 
Potosi.  Or  again  it  resulted  in  impudent 
mockery  of  the  will  of  the  majority  as  happen- 
ed in  Nuevo  Leon,  or  in  the  armed  rebellion 
of  one  of  the  contestants,  as  in  Tamaulipas. 

In  the  City  of  Mexico,  independent  news- 
papers have  appeared;  but  with  one  or  two 
exceptions,  they  have  had  to  protect  them- 
selves with  a  staflF  of  ex-revolutionary  men, 
and  not  even  this  has  been  of  any  avail,  for 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    209 

their  editors  have  been  victims  of  outrage. 
Some  newspaper  men  have  been  imprisoned 
by  order  of  the  Department  of  the  Interior  or 
the  military  authorities  without  form  or 
semblance  of  a  trial. 

In  the  states,  independent  writers  have  noit 
enjoyed,  nor  do  they  now  enjoy,  any  guaran- 
tees. Their  liberty  and  persons  are  at  the 
mercy  of  the  Governors  and  of  the  MiUtary 
Commanders  and  heads  of  garrisons. 

Thus,  therefore,  the  Federal  Government 
and  that  of  the  States  is  a  government  by  a 
caste  and  not  by  the  people;  public  opinion 
exerts  no  influence  whatsoever  upon  the 
administration,  which,  concerned  only  with 
the  enrichment  of  its  own  members,  pays 
absolutely  no  attention  to  the  interests  of 
the   nation. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

The  so-called  Congress  of  Queretaro  was 
just  as  obstinate  in  not  providing  for  institu- 
tions which  should  openly  give  to  the  country 
a  government  by  public  opinion,  the  only 
dowry  of  progressive  stability,  as  it  was  lax 
in  sanctioning  a  constitutional  dictatorship, 
now  granting  judicial  attributes  to  the  execu- 
tive, now  increasing  his  legislative  and  co- 
legislative  powers,  or  taking  liberty  of  action 
from    the   Federal    Congress, 

In  other  chapters  I  have  pointed  out  the 
series  of  dangerous  prerogatives  which  Article 
27  confers  upon  the  President  of  the  Republic 
and,  in  certain  cases,  upon  the  Governors  of 
the  states  in  matters  which  directly  affect 
private  property. 

Not  less  contrary  to  law  is  the  provision 
of  Article  21  which  refers  to  the  imposition  of 
fines. 

The  Constitution  of  1857  limited  the  power 
of  the  administration  to  impose  disciplinary 
fines  to  the  amount  of  five  hundred  pesos , 
according  to  the  terms  established  by  law. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    211 

The  Constitution  of  1917  fixes  a  maximum 
fine  equivalent  to  one  week's  wages  in  favor 
of  the  journeyman  or  day-laborer;  for  all 
others,  there  is  no  limit  whatever,  and,  what 
is  worse,  the  amount  of  the  fine  is  entirely 
at  the  discretion  of  the  administrative  author- 
ity, for  it  does  not  require  that  the  maximum 
amount  be  fixed  by  law. 

The  Constitution  of  1857  condemned  the 
confiscation  of  property  which,  historically, 
has  always  been  the  instrument  of  personal 
vengeance  or  covetous  plunder  since  the  time 
of  Marius  and  Sulla.  The  Constitution  of 
1917  explicitly  declares  that  the  application 
of  the  entire  property  of  one  person  in  payment 
of  fines  is  not  confiscation. 

An  explanation  of  these  amendments  hav- 
ing been  requested  by  a  member  of  the 
Congress  of  Queretaro,  the  Reporting  Com- 
mittee replied:  "To  fix  a  limit  to  those  penal- 
ties, both  pecuniary  and  corporal,  is  assuredly 
to  bring  about  a  result  contrary  to  that  sought 
by  the  Committee  and  which,  undoubtedly, 
is  not  the  one  desired  by  this  honorable 
Committee;  because  if  the  pecuniary  penalty 
is  limited,  then  we  shall  find  that  the  ad- 
ministrative authorities  will  continue  to  im- 
pose upon  the  rich  the  same  fine  as  upon  the 


212    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

poor,  upon  all  that  social  class  which  is 
divided  only  into  two  parts,  the  poor  and  the 
rich,  because  the  middle  class  is  but  the  poor 
class  characterized  by  its  learning  and  for 
that  reason  is  not  truly  poor  nor  is  it  as 
ignorant  as  the  moneyed  class  thinks  it." 
(Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  II,  p.  111). 

But  the  foregoing  is  nothing  compared  to 
the  changes  which  the  Constitution  of  Quere- 
taro  introduced  with  a  view  to  making  a 
veritable  constitutional  dictator  of  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Republic. 

It  authorized  but  one  annual  session  of 
the  Federal  Congress  (Art.  65),  while  in  the 
former  constitution  there  was  provision  for 
two;  it  provided  that  in  case  of  disagree- 
ment between  the  two  houses  upon  the  pre- 
mature adjournment  of  its  sessions,  it  would 
rest  with  the  executive  to  settle  the  dispute 
(Art.  66);  it  deprived,  not  only  both  houses 
of  Congress  but  also  the  permanent  committee, 
of  the  prerogative  conferred  upon  it  by  the 
Constitution  of  1857  to  call  special  session, 
vesting  the  President  of  the  Republic  ex- 
clusively with  this  prerogative,  and  it  forbade 
the  congress  in  such  extra  sessions  to  consider 
any  matters  but  those  specified  in  the  Presi- 
dential letter  of  convocation. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    213 

It  amplified  the  co-legislative  prerogatives 
of  the  executive  requiring  that  in  order  to 
pass  a  law  over  his  vote,  a  two-thirds  majority 
vote  of  the  members  of  each  house  would  be 
necessary.     (Art.  72,  paragraph  c). 

It  demanded  a  two-thirds  vote  of  the  senate 
to  declare  high  federal  officials  guilty  of 
official   offenses.     (Art.    110). 

It  repealed  the  provisions  of  the  old  Consti- 
tution which  made  the  President  of  the 
Republic  liable  to  impeachment  for  grave 
violations  of  the  Constitution,  as  well  as  for 
encroachments  upon  electoral  liberty,  and 
thus  granted  him  immunity  from  such  offenses. 
(Art.  108). 

The  Assembly  of  Queretaro  went  even 
further :  it  conferred  upon  the  then  First  Chief 
the  power  to  enact  laws  governing  the  next 
elections  for  president  and  federal  congress 
with  the  deliberate  purpose  and  result  of 
excluding  from  voting  or  being  elected  all 
those  who  had  not  given  proof  of  their 
Carrancista  affiliation.     (Art.  9  transitory). 

And,  finally,  in  transitory  Article  15,  it 
authorized  the  President  of  the  Republic  to 
enact  a  law  defining  liability  for  political 
crimes  committed  previously,  thus  including 
the  acts  which  gave  origin  to  the  government 


214    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

of  Huerta,  those  supporting  that  government 
and  the  successive  secessions  experienced 
by  the  Carrancista  faction  from  its  beginning 
up  to  the  date  of  the  new  Constitution.  A 
baneful  law,  not  only  because  it  vested  the 
above  mentioned  arbitrary  power  exclusively 
in  one  man,  but  because  of  its  hideous  retro- 
activity begotten  in  rancor! 

Attempting  to  somewhat  justify  such  con- 
centration of  power  in  the  hands  of  the 
executive,  the  First  Chief  in  his  "Exposicion 
de  Motivos"  said:  "Nor  has  the  other 
fundamental  principle  established  by  the 
Constitution  of  1857  relative  to  a  division  of 
the  exercise  of  public  power  been  carried  out 
and  consequently  it  has  been  valueless.  Such 
a  division,  generally  speaking,  has  been  merely 
written  in  the  law;  it  has  never  been  made 
eflFective,  for  as  a  matter  of  fact  all  powers 
have  been  exercised  by  one  person  alone, 
to  such  a  degree  that  by  a  series  of  constantly 
repeated  acts  contempt  has  been  shown  for  the 
supreme  law,  for,  without  the  least  scruple, 
there  has  been  given  to  the  Chief  Executive  the 
power  of  legislating  upon  all  matters.  And 
thus  the  functions  of  the  legislative  branch 
of  the  administration  were  confined  in  the 
past    merely    to    delegating    power    to    the 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    215 

Executive  and  approving  all  acts  performed 
by  him  in  virtue  of  said  power,  there  having 
been  no  record  leading  to  the  belief  that  the 
Congress  would  disavow  or  even  take  excep- 
tion to  any  act  of  the  Executive.  (Diario  de 
los  Debates,  Vol.  I,  p.  261). 

The  report  of  the  Committee  accepted  the 
theories  advanced  by  the  First  Chief  in  the 
following  terms: 

"The  second  committee  had  left  in  abey- 
ance the  presentation  of  the  report  upon 
Article  49  because  the  said  article  made  a 
reference  to  the  29th,  which  should  first  be 
approved  in  order  that  the  said  article  49 
might  be  considered  in  its  entirety.  As 
Article  29  has  already  been  approved,  the 
Committee  will  now  proceed  to  report  upon 
the  referred-to  Article  49. 

"This  article  treats  of  the  division  of 
power,  following  the  theory  that  the  exercise 
of  sovereignty  is  performed  by  the  people 
through  three  powers  which  are  equal  among 
themselves  as  organs  of  the  same  sovereignty 
— ^that  of  the  people. 

"This  theory  of  the  three  powers  is  essential 
in  our  political  system:  it  is  the  pivot  upon 
which  rest  all  our  institutions  from  merely  the 


216    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

constitutional  point  of  view. 

"The  same  reasons,  well  known  to  all, 
which  for  centuries  have  been  given  for  the 
division  of  the  said  powers,  imply  the  most 
absolute  prohibition  of  the  concentration  of  two 
of  them  in  a  single  "person.  The  process  of 
deliberation,  discussion,  and  representation  of 
the  various  interests  of  a  country  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  its  laws,  presupposes  a  group  of  repre- 
sentatives to  exercise  the  legislative  power, 
and  necessarily  prohibits  such  power  from 
being  vested  in  one  individual. 

"The  last  two  rules  have  one  exception, 
which  applies  to  cases  considered  in  Article 
29,  an  article  which  gives  to  the  Executive 
the  power  of  issuing  a  decree  for  the  establish- 
ment of  a  special  penalty  or  else  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  tribunals,  also  special,  and  to 
proceed  according  to  the  demands  of  the 
abnormal  situations  referred  to  in  the  said 
article;  in  this  case  also,  that  of  the  Article 
29,  the  special  tribunals  referred  to  may  also 
be  formed  for  the  very  prompt  and  speedy 
application  of  the  law  by  authorities  auxiliary 
to  the  Executive  power.  And  in  all  these 
cases,  by  force  of  circumstances,  two  powers 
are  united  in  the  personnel  of  one  power, 
though  subject  to  the  strict  terms  of  Article 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    217 

29,  to  the  supervision  of  the  Permanent 
Committee  and  lasting  for  a  Hmited  time. 
But  the  mere  possibility  that  such  a  necessity 
may  arise,  is  enough  to  merit  the  exception  to 
the  general  principle  formerly  established. 

"In  view  of  the  foregoing,  the  committee 
proposes  to  the  honorable  Assembly  the 
approval  of  Article  49  in  the  following  terms: 

"Article  49.  The  supreme  power  of  the 
federation  is  divided  for  its  exercise  into  the 
Legislative,  Executive  and  Judicial. 

"Two  or  more  of  those  powers  shall  not  be 
concentrated  in  one  person  alone  nor  in  one 
body,  nor  shall  the  Legislative  power  be 
intrusted  to  one  individual  except  in  the  case 
of  extraordinary  powers  given  to  the  Executive 
of  the  Union  in  accordance  with  the  provisions 
of  Article  29." 

The  debate  took  the  same  course  as  is 
shown  by  the  following  quotations: 

"Congressman  Fajardo:  I  believe,  fellow 
congressmen,  that  the  Congress,  that  is, 
the  members  of  the  Congress,  do  not  bring  to 
it  the  power  of  delegating  its  mandate,  or,  in 
other  words,  of  being  able  to  hand  over  its 
functions  to  the  Executive  Power,  whatever 
may  be  the  circumstances  which  may  present 
themselves. 


218    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

"They  may  allow  the  Executive  certain 
liberties,  they  may  give  him  extraordinary 
powers,  but  it  cannot  be  permitted,  consti- 
tutionally speaking,  that  the  Executive  be 
enabled  to  assume  the  two  powers,  and  it  is 
a  well  known  fact  that  there  is  a  division 
between  the  powers;  that  is,  that  there  is  one 
power  that  legislates  and  one  which  executes. 

"If  we  could  conceive  the  Legislative 
power  and  the  Executive  in  a  single  person, 
it  would  be  the  same  as  sanctioning  in  the 
constitution  a  dictatorship,  and  that  has  not 
been  in  the  mind  of  any  one  of  us;  at  any 
rate,  I  believe  it  and  for  that  reason  I  have 
taken  the  floor,  just  to  say  in  a  clear  way  that 
I  am  not  in  favor  of  Article  49  and  that  I 
shall  vote  against  it,  because  it  states  that 
the  Legislative  power  may  be  vested  in  the 
Executive;  I  do  not  favor  it  even  in  the  extra- 
ordinary cases  mentioned  in  Article  29. 

Congressman  Machorro  Narvaez  (member 
of  the  Commission):  .  .  .  "Article  49 
is  nothing  but  the  logical  result  of  Article 
29." 

"Now  let  us  see  whether  in  the  case  of 
Article  29,  already  approved,  any  circum- 
stance can  present  itself  as  an  argument  for 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    219 

uniting  in  one  person  two  powers.  Article  29 
says  that  the  president  with  the  approval  of 
the  Congress  of  the  Union,  or  during  its 
recesses,  with  the  approval  of  the  Permanent 
Committees,  may  suspend  throughout  the 
country  or  in  a  given  place,  the  guaranties 
which  might  be  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
meeting  a  situation  quickly  and  easily,  etc., 
and  it  might  happen  that  the  general  preven- 
tions to  which  the  quoted  article  refers  might 
consist  in  legislative  measures.  In  order  that 
it  might  not  be  argued  in  such  a  case  that  the 
rulings  made  by  the  president  were  null 
because  he  was  not  authorized  to  make  them 
since  they  did  not  belong  to  him  on  account  of 
being  attributes  of  the  Legislative  power,  the 
exception  is  made  that  in  that  case  he  may 
also  dictate  general  measures  of  a  legislative 
nature,''  (Diario  de  los  Debates,  Vol.  II, 
pp.  343,  344  and  following). 

Judging  from  such  explicit  utterances,  and 
though  possibly  at  the  cost  of  other  preroga- 
tives, of  the  Federal  Congress,  it  at  least 
seemed  that  the  basic  principle  of  the  division 
of  powers  was  victorious  and  the  corrupt 
practice  of  delegating  legislative  powers  to 
the  president  appeared  abolished  since  no 
other  exception  was  made  save  in  the  case  of 


220    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

a  suspension  of  guarantees  because  of  serious 
national  peril  threatening  from  within  or 
without. 

Nothing  could  be  more  deceiving!  A  week 
after  the  houses  of  Congress  had  been  elected, 
Carranza  obtained  from  them  the  decree  of 
May  8th,  1917,  which  delegated  to  him  ample 
powers  for  legislating  in  the  department  of 
finance,  with  the  aggravating  circumstance 
that  no  basis  was  fixed  nor  was  a  time  limit 
placed  for  their  exercise. 

For  two  years  has  Carranza  been  issuing 
decrees  relative  to  import  and  export,  stamp 
tax,  direct  and  indirect  contributions,  and,  in 
general,  upon  all  kinds  of  taxes. 

Not  satisfied  with  this,  he  has  invaded  the 
field  of  civil  and  mercantile  legislation,  not 
included  in  the  extraordinary  powers,  dictating 
the  laws  of  moratorium  and  those  relative  to 
the  liquidation  of  banks  of  issue  and  commer- 
cial banks. 

And  in  the  way  of  usurpations,  he  has  not 
hesitated  to  legislate  concerning  the  owner- 
ship of  petroleum  and  similar  products,  de- 
termining the  manner  of  acquiring,  exploiting 
or  forfeiting  them,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  said 
products  should,  in  accordance  with  Article 
27  of  the   same   Constitution  of  Queretaro, 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    221 

have  been  the  object  of  special  organic  laws. 

Many  of  these  decrees  have  had  an  ephem- 
ereal  life;  some  have  been  enforced  before 
becoming  known  throughout  the  republic  by 
publication  in  the  oflScial  papers;  others  have 
been  revoked  before  they  went  into  effect, 
and  not  a  few  have  had  as  their  object  the 
favoring  of  some  personage  or  other  of  the 
administration,  or  have  served  as  an  instru- 
ment of  coaction  for  the  benefit  of  the  favorites 
of  Carranza  who  would  obtain  shameful 
gratuities  as  a  price  for  final  repeal. 

The  use  of  these  extraordinary  powers 
has  been  so  infamous,  expensive,  and  immoral, 
that,  finally,  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  now 
estranged  from  Carranza  through  the 
approaching  presidential  elections,  proposed 
last  October  that  those  powers  be  abrogated. 

The  Department  of  the  Interior  then  turned 
to  the  cabinet  minority  and  during  various 
consecutive  sessions  succeeded  in  getting  the 
said  majority,  in  open  violation  of  the  express 
regulations  of  Congress,  to  absent  itself  from 
the  sessions  with  a  view  to  breaking  the 
quorum  each  time  the  said  law  was  to  be 
voted    upon. 

The  ofllcial  declaration  of  the  Secretary 
of  the  Interior  says  thus: 


222    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

"To  break  a  quorum  when  the  minority 
knows  beforehand  that  its  arguments  will  be 
ignored,  is  a  legitimate  resort,  because  the 
resolutions  of  the  Assemblies  should  not 
indicate  the  exclusive  preponderance  of 
number  as  number,  but  as  the  rational  sum  of 
convictions  derived  from  study,  "(sic). 
"The  democratic  conception  of  majorities, 
far  from  depending  upon  blind  domination, 
is  founded  upon  the  predominance  of  the 
minds  which  have  discerned  the  pro  and  con  of 
a  question,  and  subject  only  to  this  logical  and 
rational  standard  the  minority  is  bound  to 
submit  to  the  resolution  of  the  majority.  Other- 
wise, the  progress  of  civilization  would  be 
checked  and  fall  into  the  primitive  state 
where  sheer  force  rules.  If  the  matter  under 
discussion  is  a  simple  defense  within  the  same 
judgment,  the  minority  exercises  its  right, 
its  action  becomes  patriotic,  highly  moral 
and  life-saving  when  it  discusses  such  a 
theme  as  extraordinary  powers  in  finance, 
vital  to  the  country."  ("El  Universal," 
Mexico,  Oct.   16,   1919). 

General  Pablo  Gonzalez — Carranza's  right- 
hand-man — whose  duties  are  exclusively  those 
of  a  leader  in  command  of  forces,  when 
interviewed,  declared  to  the  reporter  of  "Ex- 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    223 

celsior"  (a  conservative  newspaper  of  Mexico 
City)  that  in  case  the  conflict  between  the 
minority  and  the  majority  should  assume 
dangerous  proportions,  "he  would  order  the 
doors  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  to  be 
closed."  (Edition  of  the  22nd  of  Oct,  1919). 
It  is  true  that  the  speaker,  frightened  by  his 
own  words  retracted  them  the  following  day, 
but  his  letter  of  rectification,  signed  by  him 
and  published  in  the  metropolitan  papers  of 
the  24th  of  October,  accuses  him  instead  of 
absolving  him. 

Carranza  has  not  yet  made  use  of  the 
power  given  to  him  by  the  Constitution  of 
Queretaro  to  fix  the  responsibilities  of,  and 
the  penalties  to  be  imposed  on,  supporters  of 
former  administrations  or  factions  hostile 
to  the  Carrancistas,  but  this  negligence  has 
been  through  calculation  and  not  through 
benevolence    or    magnanimity. 

Under  the  pretext  that  the  said  law  has 
not  yet  been  formulated,  the  government 
holds  in  exile  thousands  of  individuals,  whose 
only  crime  is  that  of  not  agreeing  with 
Carrancista  ideas,  and  before  permitting  the 
return  of  this  or  that  person,  it  exacts  from 
him  the  solemn  promise  that  he  will  not  interfere 
in  politics. 


224    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

Under  the  same  pretext,  the  government 
continues  in  the  illegal  possession  of  the 
property  of  the  exiles,  although  no  law  nor 
any  judicial  authority  whatsoever  has  sanc- 
tioned   the    occupation. 

Bolshevik,  therefore,  is  the  Carrancista 
constitution,  Bolshevik  is  the  Carrancista 
government,  because  they  are  the  constitution 
and  government  of  a  caste — the  armed  caste 
of  the  lowest  social  order — without  any  nation- 
al constructive  inspiration,  dominated  by  an 
appetite  and  a  thirst  for  riches  for  its  own 
members  and  by  a  hatred  or  contempt  for 
all   others. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

Thinking  Americans  frequently  have  ask- 
ed how  it  is  possible  that  the  constitution  and 
the  Bolshevik  government  which  have  oppres- 
sed the  Mexican  people  during  the  last  few 
years  could  be  imposed  upon  fifteen  million  in- 
habitants   by    a   handful    of    adventurers. 

It  is  not  an  extraordinary  occurrence  in  the 
United  States  for  two  bandits,  revolvers  in 
hand,  to  hold  up  a  train,  rob  the  express, 
oblige  several  hundred  passengers  to  throw  up 
their  hands,  and  strip  them  of  their  money 
and  valuables  without  meeting  any  resistance 
from  the  victims.  Such,  on  a  large  scale,  is 
the  case  of  Mexico. 

But,  comes  the  reply,  in  train  hold-ups  the 
passengers  are  taken  by  surprise,  they  either 
have  no  arms  or  no  opportunity  to  use  them, 
and  when  the  choice  comes  between  life  and 
property  they  prefer  to  give  up  the  latter. 
In  Mexico,  on  the  contrary,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  people  have  now  for  five  long  years 
submitted  to  oppression  and  have  had  suffici- 
ent time  to  recover  from  the  surprise  and  arm 
themselves. 


226    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

Time,  yes;  but  not  opportunity.  During 
that  long  term  of  five  years,  outside  of  the 
United  States,  there  has  been  no  country  from 
which  a  supply  of  arms  and  munitions  could 
be  obtained.  The  proclamations  of  the 
American  Government  purported  to  maintain 
the  neutrality  of  the  country.  However, 
they  have  resulted  in  arming  to  the  teeth  the 
Carrancista  caste  and  leaving  the  rest  of  the 
Mexican    people    helpless. 

The  erroneous  conception  which  the  head 
of  the  American  Government  has  had  of 
the  Mexican  problems,  and  the  still  more 
erroneous  idea  that  the  said  problems  could 
be  solved  by  means  of  intervention,  have 
contributed  to  this  strange  and  inexplicable 
state  of  aflFairs. 

General  discontent  and  a  spirit  of  revolt 
throughout  the  country  at  the  beginning  of 
1913  gave  warning  that  the  Madero  regime, 
lacking  prestige,  unfaithful  to  its  principles, 
and  undermined  by  anarchy  within  was  about 
to  fall,  because  the  governing  class  had 
opened  a  gulf  between  itself  and  the  governed. 

Neither  the  revolt  of  Tacubaya  nor  the 
treachery  of  Huerta  to  the  Madero  govern- 
ment was  the  direct  cause  of  this  collapse; 
they  merely  hastened  it. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    227 

The  American  Government  was  well  in- 
formed of  the  above  facts  through  the  letters 
and  telegrams  of  its  ambassador,  Henry  Lane 
Wilson,  which  were  published  in  part  during 
the  months  of  August  and  September,  1916. 
In  his  correspondence  the  ambassador  made  it 
plain  that  political  and  economic  conditions 
in  Mexico  were  day  by  day  changing  from  bad 
to  worse,  for  which  reason  American  battle- 
ships were  sent  to  ports  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
notably  Vera  Cruz.  He  further  reported  that 
during  the  ten  days  of  strife  in  the  city  of 
Mexico  resulting  from  the  Revolt  of  Tacubaya, 
the  Diplomatic  Corps  had  met  and  decided 
that,  for  the  sake  of  peace,  the  resignation  of 
President  Madero  should  be  requested,  his 
government  being  hopeless;  that  the  Spanish 
Minister  had  been  appointed  to  approach 
Madero  and  endeavor  to  convince  him  of 
the  desirability  of  his  resignation  and  that 
of  the  Vice-President;  that  when  Huerta  put 
both  ojfficials  in  prison,  he,  the  American 
Ambassador,  had  invited  Huerta  and  Felix 
Diaz,  chief  of  the  rebels,  to  meet  with  him  in 
the  Embassy  building,  for  the  purpose  of 
agreeing  upon  a  plan  for  the  organization  of  a 
"provisional  government  to  take  charge  of  the 
situation,  and  in  a  short  time  issue  a  call  for 


228    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

presidential  elections  with  a  view  to  return- 
ing to  a  normal  elective  government,  as  other- 
wise the  American  Government  would  con- 
sider itself  compelled  to  take  drastic  measures. 
Mr.  Wilson  also  stated  that  Huerta  and  Diaz 
had  agreed  that  the  former,  with  the  sanction 
of  the  Federal  Congress  and  in  the  manner  pro- 
vided by  the  Constitution,  would  assume  the 
provisional  presidency,  would  undertake  the 
immediate  pacification  of  the  country,  and 
would  issue  a  call  for  presidential  elections. 
As  there  was  no  confidence  that  Huerta  would 
keep  his  word,  a  group  of  independent  men, 
none  of  whom  were  followers  of  Huerta,  nor 
even  sympathizers  of  his,  was  appointed  to 
form  his  cabinet. 

The  American  Ambassador  gave  his  promise 
that  if  the  provisional  government  were 
organized  in  the  agreed  form,  it  would  obtain 
the  recognition  of  the  United  States. 

President  Madero  and  Vice-President  Suarez 
presented  their  resignations  which,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  provisions  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, were  accepted  almost  unanimously, 
there  being  only  five  votes  against  it, 
and  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  majority 
of  the  members  of  the  said  body  were 
Maderistas. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    229 

The  Secretary  of  Foreign  Relations,  also 
following  the  form  fixed  by  the  Constitution, 
assumed  the  duties  of  First  Magistrate,  ap- 
pointed Huerta  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior 
and  then  presented  his  own  resignation.  This 
resignation  having  been  likewise  accepted  by 
Congress,  Huerta  took  his  oath  as  Provisional 
President  before  the  said  Assembly  and  with 
its  sanction. 

Intellectual  people,  as  well  as  the  genuine 
concensus  of  opinion,  looked  with  favor  upon 
the  new  order  of  things,  for  the  nation  was 
surfeited  with  anarchy  and  unrest  and  felt 
confident  that  with  the  cabinet  chosen,  the 
government  would  be  able  to  restore  tranquil- 
ity, it  being  understood  that  a  call  for  new 
elections  would  be  issued. 

The  Supreme  Court  of  Justice  recognized 
the  constitutionality  of  the  new  government; 
all  the  states  of  the  republic,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Sonora  and  Coahuila,  the  governors  of 
which  rose  in  arms,  proclaimed  their  loyalty 
to  it. 

As  far  as  Sonora  is  concerned,  however,  it 
is  well  to  quote  the  following  significant  words 
pronounced  at  the  Carrancista  convention  in 
Mexico  on  the  5th  of  October,  1914,  by  Alvaro 


230    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

Obregon,  the  most  widely  known  of  the  Sonora 
rebels :  "  Our  revolutionary  banner  says  '  eon- 
sti-tu-tion-al-ism '  and  our  actions  affirm  the 
contrary,  *  an-ti-con-sti-tu-tion-al-ism. '  If,  be- 
cause we  are  constitutionalists,  we  were  to 
abide  by  the  constitution,  we  should  have 
recognized  Huerta,  inasmuch  as  Congress  recog- 
nized him  and  we  were  ordered  to  do  so. "  ("El 
Liberal,"  Mexico,  Oct.  6,  1914.) 

As  to  the  action  of  the  State  of  Coahuila, 
its  then  Governor,  Venustiano  Carranza,  ad- 
dressed himseK  officially  to  the  Secretary  of 
the  Interior  of  the  Huerta  Government  mani- 
festing his  desire  to  submit  to  it.  In  a  tele- 
gram sent  on  the  25th  of  February,  1913,  he 
says  the  following:  "In  order  to  co-operate 
in  the  re-establishment  of  peace  in  the  Re- 
public and  relieve  the  delicate  situation  due 
to  existing  relations  between  the  Federal 
Government  and  that  of  this  state,  which 
might  bring  about  a  conflict,  I  take  the  liberty 
of  proposing  a  conference  by  telegraph  on  the 
day  and  hour  that  you  may  assign. " 

So  general  was  this  state  of  mind,  that  Luis 
Cabrera,  radical  Maderista,  and  today  Secre- 
tary of  Finance  to  Carranza,  addressed  a 
letter  from  New  York  on  the  5th  of  March, 
1913,  to  "El  Imparcial"  of  Mexico  for  publi- 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    231 

tion,  in  which  he  says:  "I  believe  that  the 
personahstic  elements  of  the  Maderista  fac- 
tion should  cease  in  their  resistance,  for  it  is 
a  useless  effort  since  the  deaths  of  Francisco 
I.  Madero  and  Jose  Maria  Pino  Suarez.  The 
'renovadores,'*  who  were  never  personal- 
istic,  ought,  with  greater  reason,  to  accept 
the  deeds  accomplished  without  trying  to 
improve  upon  them,  taking  the  present  situa- 
tion as  the  point  of  departure  for  their  future 
labors  within  the  paths  of  constitutionalism 
procuring  the  prompt  re-establishment  of 
liberties,  but  abstaining  from  action  until 
acquainted  with  the  political  programs  of  the 
new  men  concerning  the  administration  of 
justice,  municipal  autonomy,  military  re- 
cruiting, agrarian  reforms,  and  all  other  new 
ideals. " 

It  is  not,  therefore,  out  of  the  way  to  assert 
that  had  the  American  Government  recognized 
Huerta  as  provisional  president,  with  the 
understanding  that  the  election  of  a  per- 
manent president  would  take  place  in  a  very 
short  time,  the  revolution  would  have  died 
in  its  infancy.  Then,  under  the  combined 
pressure  and  action  of  all  the  live  forces  of  the 
country,  Huerta  would  have  had  to  call  elec- 

*The  Maderista  group  in  Congress. 


232    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

tions,  and  law  and  order  would  have  been  re- 
established in  a  short  period. 

But,  upon  entering  the  White  House,  the 
new  American  president  Woodrow  Wilson, 
adopted  a  radical  policy  opposed  to  that 
warranted  by  circumstances;  he  usurped  the 
right  to  intervene  in  the  domestic  affairs  of 
Mexico,  and  resolved  to  try  out  his  political 
ideals  there. 

His  ideals  —  if  we  are  to  accept  literally 
all  that  he  has  said  and  to  ignore  the  devia- 
tions shown  in  respect  to  Peru,  Santo  Domin- 
go, Haiti  and  even  Mexico  —  were  summed 
up  in  his  hope  of  seeing  the  sovereignty  of  the 
people  realized  in  all  the  nations  of  the  world 
because  a  "just  government  rests  always 
upon  the  consent  of  the  governed  and  upon 
the  public  conscience  and  approval."  (Cir- 
cular telegram  of  March  12,  1913,  addressed 
by  the  Department  of  State  in  Washington 
to  all  the  Latin-American  nations).  By 
"people"  he  understood  not  exactly  "those 
above,"  but  rather  the  *'lower  layer,"  for  he 
claimed  that  not  one  instance  could  be  cited 
"in  all  the  history  of  the  world  where  liberty 
was  handed  down  from  above"  and  "liberty 
always  is  attained  by  the  forces  working  be- 
low, underneath,  by  the  great  movement  of 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    233 

the  people."  (Interview  given  by  President 
Wilson  to  the  "Saturday  Evening  Post"  on 
the  23rd  of  May,  1914).  He  firmly  believed 
"that  when  a  government  proves  unsuitable 
to  the  life  of  the  people  under  it,  they  have  a 
right  to  alter  or  abolish  it  in  any  way  that  they 
please."  (Speech  of  President  Wilson  de- 
livered in  Columbus,  Ohio,  on  the  11th  of 
December,  1915);  and  the  United  States, 
"the  champions  of  free  government  and  na- 
tional sovereignty  in  both  continents  of  this 
hemisphere"  (speech  of  President  Wilson  de- 
livered at  the  Waldorf  Hotel,  New  York,  on 
the  26th  of  January,  1915)  "can  have  no 
sympathy  with  those  who  seek  to  seize  the 
power  of  the  government  to  advance  their  own 
personal  interests  or  ambitions."  (Circular 
telegram  above  cited). 

And  speaking  more  concretely  of  the  causes 
and  origin  of  the  Mexican  problem,  Wilson 
himself  adds:  "The  economic  development 
of  Mexico  has  so  far  been  accomplished  by 
such  'concessions'  and  by  the  exploitation  of 
the  fertile  lands  of  the  republic  by  a  very  small 
number  of  owners  who  have  accumulated 
under  one  title  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
acres  .  .  .  and  reduced  the  population  to  a 
sort  of  peonage. "     (Interview  with  President 


234    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

Wilson  published  in  The  Ladies  Home  Journal, 
October,  1916).  He  further  said:  "No  one 
asks  for  order,  because  order  will  help  the 
masses  of  the  people  to  get  a  portion  of  their 
rights  and  of  their  land;  but  all  demand  it  so 
that  the  great  owners  of  property,  the  over- 
lords, the  hidalgos,  the  men  who  have  ex- 
ploited that  rich  country  for  their  own  selfish 
interests,  shall  be  able  to  continue  their 
processes  undisturbed."  .  .  .  (Aforementioned, 
interview  of  May  23,  1914);  ''eighty-five  per 
cent  of  the  Mexican  people  have  never  been 
allowed  to  have  any  genuine  participation  in 
their  own  government  or  to  esercise  any  sub- 
stantial rights  with  regard  to  the  very  land 
they  live  upon.  All  the  rights  that  men  most 
desire  have  been  exercised  by  the  other  fifteen 
per  cent.;"  (Address  of  President  Wilson  de- 
livered at  Independence  Hall,  July  4,  1914) ; 
those  who  demand  order  "want  .  .  .  the  old 
order;  but  .  .  .  the  old  order  is  dead."  Presi- 
dent Wilson  in  his  own  words  declared  his 
task  to  be  "to  aid  in  composing  those  differ- 
ences so  far  as  I  may  be  able,  that  the  new 
order,  which  will  have  its  foundation  on  human 
liberty  and  human  rights,  shall  prevail"  and 
"those  in  de  facto  control  of  the  government 
(Huerta)  must  be  relieved  of  that  control  before 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    235 

Mexico  can  realize  her  manifest  destiny." 
(Above-mentioned  interview  in  the  Saturday 
Evening  Post);  "and  then,  when  the  end 
comes,  we  shall  hope  to  see  constitutional 
order  restored  in  distressed  Mexico  by  the 
concert  and  energy  of  such  of  her  leaders  (the 
Carrancistas)  as  prefer  the  liberty  of  their 
people  to  their  own  ambitions."  (Presidential 
Message  to  the  United  States  Congress, 
December  2,  1913). 

In  the  result  of  such  a  social  experiment 
President  Wilson  has  nothing  to  be  proud  of. 

He  intended  to  have  the  political  power  of 
Mexico  vested  in  the  will  of  the  governed  and 
to  banish  forever  governments  depending 
upon  force;  but  the  Carrancista  faction  has 
neither  admitted  suffrage  beyond  its  own 
ranks,  nor  has  it  stood  except  for  the  100,000 
*'hopHtes"  that  devour  four-fifths  of  all  the 
federal  revenue. 

President  Wilson  wishes  to  suppress  the 
oligarchy  of  the  former  governing  classes  and 
transfer  public  affairs  to  the  eighty  per  cent, 
of  laborers  and  illiterates;  but  under  his 
patronage  the  basest  of  ochlocracies,  some- 
thing less  than  one  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
nation,  has  taken  possession  of  the  govern- 
ment to  the  systematic  exclusion  of  all  other 


236    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

social  classes,  educated  or  illiterate,  rich  or 
poor. 

President  Wilson  determined  to  try  out 
south  of  the  Bravo  a  Utopian  democracy  and 
establish  it  among  sub-civilized  multitudes; 
but,  instead,  he  has  seen  enthroned  the 
absolutism  of  one  man  in  whose  irresponsible 
hands  the  neo-constitution  places  the  property 
of  the  governed,  and  to  whom  the  members 
of  his  caste,  against  the  canons  of  that  neo- 
constitution,  have  delivered  the  legislative 
power  and  with  it  the  power,  not  recognized 
in  any  democracy,  of  creating  and  readjust- 
ing taxes  without  the  consent  of  the  com- 
munity; an  autocracy  which,  limitless  in  its 
capacity  for  evil  doing,  has  been  impotent  in 
preventing  it  in  the  twenty-eight  satrapies 
of  the  States,  cut  by  the  same  pattern. 

President  Wilson  intended  to  establish  the 
reign  of  equality,  of  justice,  and  of  liberty, 
vesting  the  government  in  the  hands  of  the 
armed  citizens;  but  he  succeeded  only  in 
creating  two  castes:  that  of  the  upstart  rulers 
— murderers,  abductors  and  thieves  from  the 
penitentiary  —  and  that  of  the  pariahs;  the 
latter,  exposed  to  all  kinds  of  attacks  and 
humiliations,  the  former  vested  with  all  rights 
and  prerogatives.     For  each  act  of  oppression, 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    237 

each  plunder,  each  injustice  in  the  past, 
Wilson,  indifferent,  has  watched  a  thousand 
outrages,  a  thousand  spoliations,  a  thousand 
iniquities,  taking  place  under  the  rule  of  his 
protege. 

President  Wilson  dreamt  of  bringing  about 
the  happiness  of  the  destitute  classes,  and  of 
creating  a  new  Mexico,  but  he  has  succeeded 
only  in  allowing  Carranzaism  to  submerge 
them  in  misery,  abjection  and  ignorance,  and 
carry  on  without  respite  or  rest  the  destruc- 
tion of  every  particle  of  culture  and  progress 
which  the  country  had  achieved. 

But  the  most  unbiased  commentary  which 
could  possibly  be  made  on  the  Mexican  policy 
of  Woodrow  Wilson,  President,  is  the  criti- 
cism written  by  W^oodrow  Wilson,  historian, 
relative  to  the  period  which  followed  the 
emancipation  of  the  slaves  at  the  end  of  the 
Civil  War  in  the  United  States. 

For  the  sake  of  impartiality,  the  length  of 
the  quotation  will  be  pardoned. 

The  Historian  Wilson  speaks  as  follows: 

"Negroes  constituted  the  majority  of  their 
electorates;  but  political  power  gave  them  no 
advantage  of  their  own.  Adventurers  swarmed 
out  of  the  North  to  cozen,  beguile,  and  use 
them.     These  men,  mere  *  carpet  baggers'  for 


238    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

the  most  part,  who  brought  nothing  with 
them,  and  had  nothing  to  bring,  but  a  change 
of  clothing  and  their  wits,  became  the  new 
masters  of  the  blacks.  They  gained  the 
confidence  of  the  negroes,  obtained  for  them- 
selves the  more  lucrative  oflSces,  and  lived 
upon  the  public  treasury,  public  contracts, 
and  their  easy  control  of  affairs.  For  the 
negroes  there  was  nothing  but  occasional 
allotments  of  abandoned  or  forfeited  land, 
the  pay  of  petty  offices,  a  per  diem  allowance 
as  members  of  the  conventions  and  the  state 
legislatures  which  their  new  masters  made 
business  for,  or  the  wages  of  servants  in  the 
various  offices  of  the  administration.  Their 
ignorance  and  credulity  made  them  easy 
dupes.  A  petty  favor,  a  slender  stipend,  a 
trifling  perquisite,  a  bit  of  poor  land,  a  piece  of 
money  satisfied  or  silenced  them.  It  was 
enough,  for  the  rest,  to  play  upon  their 
passions:  they  were  easily  taught  to  hate  the 
men  who  had  once  held  them  in  slavery,  and 
to  follow  blindly  the  political  party  which 
had  brought  on  the  war  of  their  emancipa- 
tion. 

"There  were  soon  lands  enough  and  to 
spare  out  of  which  to  make  small  gifts  to 
them  without  sacrifice  of  gain  on  the  part  of 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    239 

their  new  masters  .  .  .  Enormous  debts 
were  piled  up  to  satisfy  the  adventurers. 

"TVTiere  the  new  rulers  acted  with  less  as- 
surance and  immunity  or  with  smaller  re- 
sources at  hand,  debts  grew  more  slowly,  but 
the  methods  of  spoliation  were  everywhere 
much  the  same;  and  with  the  rise  of  debts 
went  always  the  disappearance  of  all  assets 
wherewith  to  pay  them.  Treasuries  were 
swept  clean. 

"The  real  figures  of  the  ruin  wrought  no 
men  could  get  at.  It  was  not  to  be  expressed 
in  state  taxes  or  state  debts.  The  increase 
in  the  expenditure  and  indebtedness  of  counties 
and  towns,  of  school  districts  and  cities,  re- 
presented an  aggregate  greater  even  than  that 
of  the  ruinous  sums  which  had  drained  the 
treasuries  and  mortgaged  the  resources  of  the 
governments  of  the  States;  and  men  saw  with 
their  own  eyes  what  was  going  on  at  their  own 
doors.  What  was  afoot  at  the  capitals  of 
their  states  they  only  read  of  in  the  news- 
papers or  heard  retailed  in  the  gossip  of  the 
street,  but  the  affairs  of  their  own  villages 
and  coimtry-sides  they  saw  corrupted,  mis- 
managed, made  base  use  of  under  their  very 
eyes.  There  the  negroes  themselves  were  the 
oflSce  holders,  men  who  could  not  so  much  as 


240    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

write  their  names  and  who  knew  none  of  the 
uses  of  authority  except  insolence.  It  was 
there  that  the  pohcy  of  the  congressional 
leaders  wrought  its  perfect  work  of  fear, 
demoralization,  disgust,  and  social  revolution. 
"No  one  who  thought  justly  or  tolerantly 
could  think  that  this  veritable  overthrow  of 
civilization  in  the  South  had  been  foreseen 
or  desired  by  the  men  who  had  followed  Mr. 
Stevens,  and  Mr.  Waden  and  Mr.  Morton 
in  their  policy  of  rule  or  ruin.  That  handful 
of  leaders  it  was,  however,  hard  to  acquit  of 
the  charge  of  knowing  and  intending  the 
ruinous  consequences  of  what  they  had  planned. 
They  would  take  counsel  of  moderation 
neither  from  northern  men  nor  from  southern. 
They  were  proof  against  both  fact  and  reason 
in  their  determination  to  *put  the  White 
South  under  the  heel  of  the  black  South.' 
They  did  not  know  the  region  with  which  they 
were  dealing.  Northern  men  who  did  know 
it  tried  to  inform  them  of  its  character  and  of 
the  danger  and  folly  of  what  they  were  under- 
taking; but  they  refused  to  be  informed,  did 
not  care  to  know,  were  in  any  case  fixed  upon 
the  accomplishment  of  a  single  object.  Their 
colleagues,  their  followers,  kept,  many  of 
them,  a  cooler  mind,  a  more  prudent  way  of 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    241 

thought,  but  could  not  withstand  them. 
They,  too,  were  ignorant  of  the  South.  They 
saw  but  a  Uttle  way  into  the  future,  had  no 
means  of  calculating  what  the  effects  of  these 
drastic  measures  would  be  upon  the  life  and 
action  of  the  South,  and  lacked  even  the 
knowledge  of  mere  human  nature  which  might 
have  served  them  instead  of  an  acquaintance 
with  the  actual  men  they  were  dealing  with. 
They  had  not  foreseen  that  to  give  the  suffrage 
to  the  negroes  and  withhold  it  from  the  more 
capable  white  men  would  bestow  political 
power,  not  upon  the  negroes,  but  upon  the 
white  adventurers,  as  much  the  enemies  of 
one  race  as  of  the  other. 

"In  that  day  of  passion,  indeed,  they  had 
not  stopped  to  speculate  what  the  effects 
would  be.  Their  object  had  been  to  give  the 
negro  political  power  in  order  that  he  might 
defend  his  own  rights,  as  voters  everywhere 
else  might  defend  theirs. "  (A  History  of  the 
American  People,  by  Woodrow  Wilson,  Vol. 
V,  pp.  49,  50). 

Is  not  the  parallel  overwhelming? 

In  the  American  nation  at  the  time  of  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  urgently  demanded  by 
civilization  and  humanity,  the  men  of  the 
north,  congressional  leaders,  ignorant  of  the 


242    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

slave  region,  proof  against  fact  and  reason, 
refusing  information  and  advice  from  their 
own  colleagues  and  from  the  white  men  of  the 
South,  had  granted  suffrage  to  the  negroes 
on  no  other  basis  than  their  theories  concern- 
ing self-government.  In  the  Mexican  nation, 
Wilson,  the  man  of  the  north,  the  democratic 
leader,  ignorant  of  the  idiosyncracies  of  his 
neighbor  on  the  south,  proof  against  fact  and 
reason,  deaf  to  the  reports  and  the  advice  of 
his  fellow-countrymen  and  the  governing 
classes  of  Mexico,  had  wished  to  carry  the 
social  and  economic  emancipation  of  the 
lowest  proletariat,  in  itself  a  noble  and 
humanitarian  ambition,  to  the  Utopian  ex- 
treme of  vesting  this  eighty  per  cent  of  the 
national  population  exclusively  with  the  pre- 
rogative of  political  power. 

In  the  South,  conscienceless  adventurers 
swarmed  to  cozen  and  beguile  the  negroes. 
They  obtained  for  themselves  the  more  lucra- 
tive offices,  emptied  the  public  treasuries, 
contracted  enormous  debts,  lived  upon  public 
contracts,  and  caused  the  ruin  of  the  South; 
and,  in  order  to  satisfy  and  silence  the  freed- 
men,  they  gave  them  insignificant  allotments 
of  land,  petty  offices  in  the  administration, 
now  and  then  a  paltry  favor,  and  even  played 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    243 

upon  their  passions,  implanting  in  them  a 
hatred  for  their  former  masters.  In  Mexico, 
adventurers  also  swarmed,  men  without  prop- 
erty, without  patrimony,  enemies  to  decent 
dress,  and  to  the  short  brimmed  hat,  many  of 
them  shirtless  and  shoeless,  criminals  from 
penitentiaries  in  great  numbers  took  possession 
of  the  seats  of  authority,  rifled  public,  private 
and  religious  exchequers,  abducted  and 
murdered  systematically,  destroyed  railroads, 
factories,  and  plants,  and  in  place  of  provid- 
ing bread  and  work  for  the  eighty  per  cent  of 
liberated  slaves,  they  harangued  the  masses 
and  fanned  their  rancour  to  white  heat. 

In  the  American  nation,  the  leaders  of 
Congress  by  giving  suflfrage  to  the  negroes 
and  withholding  it  from  the  white  men, 
bestowed  the  public  power,  not  upon  those 
negroes,  but  upon  the  adventurers,  as  much 
the  enemies  of  one  race  as  of  the  other. 

President  Wilson's  Mexican  policy  aimed 
at  wresting  political  power  from  the  class 
then  exercising  it  in  order  to  bestow  it, 
theoretically,  upon  the  eighty  per  cent  of  the 
population  which  composed  the  proletariat, 
a  semi-civilized  group  incapable  of  governing 
even  their  own  villages.  The  result  of  that 
policy  was,  naturally  enough,  that  the  newly- 


244    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

delegated  power  immediately  fell  into  the 
hands  of  unscrupulous  adventurers,  the  lead- 
ers of  the  "armed  citizens,"  who  were  enemies 
alike  of  the  former  political  leaders  and  the 
unfortunate  people  whom  it  had  become  their 
privilege  to  exploit. 

The  situation  was  aggravated  by  the  fact 

that  President  Wilson,  by  recognizing  the  de 

facto  government   of   Carranza,  had  opened 

the  way  for  the  band  of  adventurers  who 

composed  that  government  to  lay  in  a  supply 

of  arms  and  other  munitions  of  war  while 

ninety-nine  per  cent  of  the  Mexican  people 

were    shackeled    and    rendered    defenseless. 

President  Wilson  was  admittedly  actuated 

by  the  best  of  intentions  but  it  is  difficult  to 

believe  that  he  could  not  have  foreseen,  at 

least  to  some  degree,  the  disastrous  results 

to  Mexican  civilization  which  the  pursuit  of 

such  a  policy  must  inevitably  have  brought 

about.     The  errors  which  he  committed  are 

not,  as  we  have  seen,  to  be  charged  to  a  lack 

of  magnanimity.     His  chief  mistake,  and  it  is 

/  a  magnitudinous  one,  has  consisted  in  the 

fbelief  that  a  better  solution  of  the  problems 

/  of  a  people  can  be  worked  out  by  a  foreign 

'  government  than  by  the  people  themselves, 

Any  attempts  whatsoever  at  intervention. 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    245 

whether  they  carry  out  the  ideas  of  President 
Wilson  or  are  at  variance  with  them,  must 
inevitably  bring  new  and  probably  greater 
calamities. 

Any  future  diplomatic  intervention,  such 
as  have  been  all  previous  ones,  with  one  or  two 
accompanying  martial  demonstrations,  will 
fail  through  lack  of  an  understanding  of  the 
ideals,  sentiments,  customs,  traditions,  history, 
culture,  and  racial  characteristics  of  the 
Mexican  people  and  will  only  succeed  in 
bringing  about  a  loss  of  prestige  by  the  United 
States  and  rendering  unpopular  the  political 
party  which  sanctions  it. 

If  armed  intervention  should  at  some  time 
come  about,  to  the  foregoing  evils  will  be 
added  others  of  a  most  serious  nature,  for 
national  sentiment,  stronger  than  that  of  any 
faction,  will  be  aroused,  all  Latin-America  will 
protest,  and  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  the 
laboring  classes  of  the  United  States,  tradi- 
tionally discontented,  would  raise  the  old 
cry  of  capitalistic  greed. 

Bolshevism  in  Mexico  was  a  minor  force 
in  1917  —  as  the  Bolshevik  Congressman 
Marchoro  Narvaez  admitted  in  the  Assembly 
of  Queretaro.  Intellectuals,  capitalists,  heads 
of  industries,  employees,  the  middle  class  in 


246    Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime 

general,  and  a  large  portion  of  the  laboring 
classes,  were  opposed  to  the  faction  in  power 
according  to  the  admissions  of  the  same 
Marchoro  Narvaez.  At  present,  the  Bolshe- 
vik group  is  even  smaller,  for  it  has  been 
deserted  by  the  very  few  honest  leaders  it 
formerly  relied  upon,  and,  above  all,  by  the 
laboring  classes  of  the  cities  and  of  the  country 
to  whom  the  sad  experience  of  two  and  a  half 
years  of  misery  and  humiliations  has  demon- 
strated that  the  Carrancista  revolution  did  not 
sponsor,  nor  can  it  sponsor,  anything  what- 
soever of  a  magnanimous  or  constructive 
nature. 

We  can  see,  therefore,  that  many  and  of 
great  influence  are  the  national  elements  that 
seek  to  uproot  Carrancista  Bolshevism.  They 
include  equally  the  governing  and  the  gov- 
erned classes,  the  only  exceptions  being  the 
military  chiefs  and  demagogues  who  occupy 
prominent  places  in  the  federal  and  state 
governments  and  in  the  army,  and  who  seek 
only  to  satisfy  their  insatiable  appetites  for 
riches. 

If  the  caste  which  today  has  possession  of 
power  in  Mexico  were  to  lose  the  moral  and 
material  support  of  the  United  States,  the 
Mexican   nation   would   no   longer   face   the 


Carranza  and  His  Bolshevik  Regime    247 

obstacle  which  has  stood  in  the  way  of  the 
achievement  of  its  aspirations  and,  unaided, 
it  could  restore  the  constitution  of  1857, 
accomplish  the  reforms  which  the  general 
concensus  of  opinion  considers  mandatory  as 
affecting  labor,  lands,  the  educational  system, 
the  courts  and  the  laws  which  govern  suffrage 
and  could  establish  a  respected,  stable  and 
progressive  government  capable  of  fulfilling 
its  national  and  international  obligations. 

The  above  conclusions,  then,  suggest  the 
policy  which  considerations  of  expediency, 
justice  and  humanity  would  seem  to  render  it 
advisable  for  the  United  States  to  follow  in  its 
relations  with  Mexico.  It  can  be  summed  up 
in  one  compound  word:  non-intervention. 

Los  Angeles.  November  12,  1919. 


